Graveyard Tan
by glittergoddess13
Summary: “All my friends are skeletons!” Dean got away once, but the plagues calling again. Sometimes the smallest things make all the difference in surviving. HurtDean! ProtectiveSam! Bobby! John! CalebWilliam Harvelle! Weechester! Flashbacks!
1. All My Friends are Skeletons

**Author's Note: Hi! It's been a while. After months of fighting off the Zombie Apocalypse (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it), I am taking a break and getting my mojo going with a bit of fiction. The teaser is short, but hopefully the story has some twists and turns for you in upcoming chapters. I promise everything will be answered by the end, cause I like making you wonder, but not leaving you hanging. Enjoy.**

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**NOW... Jasper, Tennessee  
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"All my friends are skeletons."

As the strange voice zipped through his mind, Dean puzzled over which nightmarish part of his past warped that phrase into existence. Honestly, given the volume of evil in his past, it could have been his own morbid imagination. He might have called himself a sicko, but he sure wasn't depraved enough to talk to himself. Well, not yet. He never counted any possibility out at this point. Moreover, the idea of waking Sam and explaining why he was talking to himself sparked more disturbing notions.

Simply, he shifted and nestled against whatever pointy, broken mattress spring chose to poke him now. Pressure point after stinging pressure point jabbed into him as his mind rumbled with a thousand disconnected thoughts, stealing sleep and patience. His brain began to take over, filling with hundreds of what if, what was, and what could be until he growled at his own overactive mind. As the hour approached midnight, he fantasized that he could rip the grey matter from his skull, stick it in some jar, and be brain dead- at least until sunrise. Since a lobotomy was out of the question, he rumbled over horror movie trivia and even debated which Zombie movie displayed the most goodies of the hottest chicks.

"All my friends are skeletons."

Damn he hated nights like this. Vaguely, he remembered he use to thrill at the thought that night had finally come. Night meant hunting with Dads, teaching Sam, chasing chicks, driving back roads- saving peoples, hunting things. The switch happened subtly without a clear line of when. Maybe the night Sam died, the night he died, the day he came back from Hell, the day he thought Sam and he would never ride the roads again. Not that any of the reasons mattered; he would always hate night until the day he died, if no heavenly, brotherly, or hellishly interventions brought him back-- again.

"All my friends are skeletons!" A deep growl danced over the words, springing into a melody, an odd mixture of grumble and childlike discovery.

A faint snapping sound- dim and subtle popped within earshot. One by one, more sounds of breaking twigs sounded growing louder as if bones were cracking within the room.

Dean, jumping to attention, crashed from the motel bed as he peered into the darkness. Enough was enough. Not a thing was out of place- no sight, sound, or smell.

"You're nuts, Dean." Rubbing at the dryness in his eyes with both hands, the dry lids stuck to the desert orbs. He blinked a few times and dropped his hand to rub the bristle scratching at his cheek. "- and you're talking to yourself. Just bonkers."

He threw back his covers, dangled his legs over the mattress, and assessed the room with trained scrutiny. After nothing emerged from the darkness, he sneaked out of his bed to check all the precautions- salted windows, hoodoo, talismans, and charms. All of which Sam had uber justified each time they rested. As much as Dean protested the almost daily ritual of protections, Dean had to admit he felt safer with knowing Sam was on his side. Whatever mistakes had been made, that mattered more than any apocalypse.

Finally convinced that he had grown too paranoid and too burdened by angels, demons, Lucifer, God, and prophecy, Dean shuffled back across the threadbare carpet, actually relishing the idea of resting on the lumpy mattress. Before he risked the metallic punctures again, Dean wadded his sheets and blanket into a ball, nudging it under his head as he cannonballed on the bed with a thunderous whoop.

Cautiously, he stared at Sam, and with relief, he found the noise hadn't disturbed snoring ugly at all. With a chuckle, he laughed at his own lame joke and knew he would find a time to call Sam that in the future. He closed his eyes, taking in the darkness. When his lips parted, sneaking in a cool breath, he drifted back to the land between sleep and awareness, mingling for a moment on the precipice.

"All my friends are skeletons." The voice sang to him, almost deafening.

Instantly, Dean's ears rang, the words ricocheting inside his head like loose change in the dryer. The air thickened and heated, clogging solid in his throat and slamming his ability to breathe shut; however he felt the a distinct cool breath tingle across his neck. He desperately wanted to turn his head, face down an opponent, but nothing was there.

In the pitch black, Dean's struggle for air gnawed at him, attacking him with vertigo as he lost not only recognition but also control over his own body.

"All my friends are skeletons."

As the last note finished, Dean's legs moved, disjointed a first, but moving towards the motel door as the voice grew louder, waiting for him outside the door. Despite knowing this, he drew closer with each unwilling step. He didn't need to see it. He knew something was there calling him- luring him. The presence already sparked movement in his bones, breathed foul coolness on his skin, and sang disturbing songs in his ear without touching him. It had control.

"Let me in. Let me in. All my friends are skeletons." The song, as gleeful as playground kids singing Ring around the Rosie, repeated until the sound spilled maddeningly fast.

No matter how Dean wanted to fight or just to scream for Sam, he found his body moved only to the voice just beyond the safety of his door.

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	2. Child's Play

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NOW... Jasper, Tennessee

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With a sudden jerking disjointed movement, resembling a reject dancer from Thriller, Dean's hand thudded against the doorknob. To an observer, he would have appeared completely calm with the only tell of danger from the disjointed movement of his limbs and the sweat dribbling out of his every pore. Not a single signal of distress or panic etched his frame or expression. To all appearances, he could be a klutz with a late night case of the munchies.

"All my friends are skeletons!" The voice sang sweetly now in a murmured, taunting lullaby.

When his hand arched upward, fingers drawing into a clasp, a sweat bead rolled down his slippery forefinger to dribble a splat on his right big toe.

"Open the door. Join me friend."

Again, his hand drew back awkwardly while his head flopped from lack of air. The drenched fingers grubbily clasped the cold metal doorknob, unable turn the tumblers free in his slick palms, feeling as slimy as melted butter. Desperately, he thought if I could just scream out, just lunge for a weapon, just stop moving that would be something.

"S-s-s---" Dean's lips hissed, forcing out a solitary and brief spout of air sounding more like a leaking tire than a man in danger and surely a phantom away from resembling a word in any language. Desperately, he tried again, not even managing a gust of air. He might have gasped had his throat not been closed shut.

His willful hand whipped around the knob again, and he heard the tumblers click into place without Dean's conscious decision to do so. With a flourish, his arm jerked back in a wide triumphant swing, only to find the deadbolt chain locked in place. Increasing effort, his other hand yanked harder at the door as the chain bounced and groaned under the pressure. He involuntary struggled to welcome the caller waiting for him when the curved metal finally broken between victim and killer.

Just beyond the sliver of the cracked door, a world of shadows waited. Quiet now- almost peaceful. A welcome embrace of trees and shrubs offered reassurance, if only briefly. And then, as his eyes petrified in the sockets- unblinking, the shadows pooled and massed into a human shape of elegant stature.

"Dear friend, the time has come." The dark thing spoke.

In the recesses of Dean's mind, he welcomed the creature; even as he felt it was less shadow and more a part of the darkness. Part of something so dark and murky that it was familiar. How else could he explain the odd sensation of a new kind of déjà vu as know to him as the taste of chocolate ice cream, but he just could recognize it. An original experience wrapped inside something he knew. If he could only see more than the dark shape or stare the thing in the eyes, he could name it.

"Rattle the chains. Suck the blood from all your bones."

Somewhere in the rhyme, Dean lost sight of the figure. The world, as pitch as Eden first day, held its breath along with Dean, waiting for the killer to plot deplorable action. It didn't take long. At first, a flicker- all too brief. Finally, acrid smoke wafted in the nothingness followed by another spark. . Then, just a briefly as the flame appeared, it was gone. Fire. Had to be fire. He was sure of it. On and on one fire died and another one came. Each no bigger than the glow of a lightening bug.

"Children shouldn't play with matches." The voice called. "Now we know why all my friends are skeletons. So sad. So sad."

Inside the darkness, one flame appeared, burning out in a short life and shortly replaced by another. Each time the smell of the matchstick made Dean nauseous.

"Friends. You promised me. Own your bones! "

A sudden euphoria flittered inside of Dean. Eeeking, his hand now slid at the chain with clear and fluid movements.

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THEN... New Hope, Massachusetts May 1990

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**"**Dean Winchester!"

Just hearing his name gave Dean a sense of immense satisfaction. Sadly, he didn't have to glance at Sister Grace to know her nostrils flared and her uni-brow wiggled like a spastic caterpillar. He might be only ten, but he had figured the Sister quicker than the kiss he had given Molly Peterson under the bleachers.

"Do you have anything else to say about this?"

Dangling a dead and obscenely rotten frog from one leg, the rotund sister flopped the animal about with a pendulum. With each wag of her swollen fist, the amphibian wafted a putrid smell that mingled with the wild honeysuckle that grew just outside the windows of St. Joseph's Catholic School. Dean hated that smell.

"Well, do you know what this is?"

"It's a frog."

Fear alone was generally enough to keep the class quiet, but the obvious response elicited stifled snickers.

"And, it's dead."

An uproarious bout of laugher erupted from the class, which soon stopped as dead as unfortunate creature in Sister Grace's sausage like fingers. One of her milky eyes narrowed, dropping a bit of liquid that trailed down to her perched, caustic lips.

"And it smells--"

By this point, Dean had lost his comrades and audience. The worry of punishment kept even the most rotten of the kids iron trapped mouth shut except of him.

"Now, do you suppose you had anything to do with poor froggy's demise?"

"Nope. Not at all Sister Gracie."

He wanted to smirk, just to show how good he was- how easy he could crawl under her skin, yet he wasn't stupid. He had a family to protect. Push too much and the whole Winchester hunting can of demons would open. Inside he jumped in delight; however, his outward appearance gave no indication of his guilt. Moreover, in his defense, the frog was long dead when he found it. He simply used it- a tool in his careful time killing of the mind numbing torture of school.

"Young man, do you realize the opportunity my lessons should instill in you or must you strive for ignorance."

As the Sister ranted on about vengeance and God, silence and golden, and lion and lambs, Dean tapped his toes inside his boots, waiting for her to finish. Sometimes it took a while. Normally, he enjoyed arguing with her, but even that lost luster after a while. She was too easy to irritate and what he really wanted was to be on the road with his father.

In this case, Dean didn't understand his father's reasoning. Sam and he might be safer in the Catholic school, but unlike other teachers, these people were nosy. He had a sense that John would not like the attention his pranks drew and would not condone the boredom excuse. He hated school, he hated his teacher, he hated that his Dad was gone again, he hated the prying righteousness, and most of all he hated that damned smell of honeysuckles.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Let there be light and part the sea and feed the fishes some bread. I got it. Thanks." Dean said, snapping back to attention.

"Mockery is not welcome. If you have nothing constructive--."

"I hate St. Josh's." He mispronounced the name on purpose. If she sent him to see the priest, he could fake going and roam the halls until it was time to get Sam from his class. That was at least a bearable means to pass his time.

"Do not say that again! This--, "She stammered. Her puffy cheeks flustered bright red with agitation. As she spoke again, the Sister's voice sounded as shrill as gabble of frightened parakeets. "What in heaven's name is wrong with you?"

"Whatever, Sister Merry Cherry."

That was just enough to break the class spirit loose with a symphony of chuckles and chatter. The amused children didn't have time to stop before Father O'Brien appeared in the doorway.

"Having a good class today I can see, Sister Grace."

Sudden the group fell silent, while Dean smirked.

"Not in the least. That! That child!" Her finger wagged hypnotically in front of Dean.

The wise and weather face of the man drew down, showing even more wrinkles. Time had withered any softness from his hands and body, but the priest's eyes held a comforting warmness.

"Ah, I see. Then, I don't have to ask if you mind if I borrow Young Mr. Winchester for a spell."

"I don't mind if you keep him until the second coming!" Instantly, the Sister realized the harshness of her words and softened "Sorry father. I was just about to send him to you for personal guidance. Once again."

"Look on him as a test. All trials teach us something."

With a nod, Father O'Brien motioned for Dean to follow him out of the classroom. As soon as they were a few feet beyond the door, away from earshot, the priest sighed deeply.

"I hate that," said Dean.

"You should be tired of hearing my frustrated sights."

"You should be tired of doing it."

"Touché."

"What?"

"It means you got me on that one."

"Oh." He said in understanding.

"Well, at least I know you can be taught. Must you try so hard to press the Sister's buttons?"

"I didn't try really."

"I believe that's true. I do try to understand you child."

"Just give me my punishment and save the lecture."

"There's truth in that. We have time for that reprimand and lessons later. Now, I need your help with another problem child.

"Want me to teach him some new tricks?"

"I'm afraid you taught him the old ones."

When the pair turned the corner of the hall, they both gaped at the young boy swinging his legs from the overly tall bench. As soon as Sam caught sight of Dean, relief swept over him before he twirled his feet in shame.

"What happened? Did someone bother you? What did you do? What happened?" Dean said, spouting the question like a VCR on fast-forward.

"Breathe, son, breathe. We found these on him." The priest produced a large box of waterproof matches. "Now, we cannot allow children to play with matches."


	3. Rollover

**_Greetings. It's been a hectic couple of weeks with many delays in my plans (writing and life!). I'm posting a larger section than I planned this chapter to make up for the lack of updates. It may not have driven you crazy, but I hate not updating quickly! Have a good one and I'll see you again (sooner this time)._**

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**THEN… Rucker, North Dakota- June 1990**

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The pestilent spot, a blistered and inflamed splatter of poison ivy at the base of Dean's back, harassed the sleepy heavy boy until he unwillingly stirred. The only way things would be worse was if he was still be in that equally irritating Catholic school. As it stood, the ivy branded him with a reminder of the detention he and Sam had endured at the discretion of Father Lloyd O'Brien. Just thankfully, the school year ended soon after the priest shoveled out the punishment mandate.

For a child already skilled in the art of cons, the sentence bore exceptionally hard when no amount of sweet talk saved either of them from the clutches of Darth Lloyd, as Dean had dubbed the priest. Throughout the weeks, the evil despot rambled over tombs of math and drudgeries of endless vocabulary lessons- words like bebetude, quaff, and afflatus-, which now rattled in Dean's brain even though he tried to forget. It didn't help that Sam repeated the funny sounding words to this day, spouting them like a hellish, squealing parrot.

The worst of the transgressions that had drove Dean berserk, were the sermons-- three weeks of "holy roller- brimstone- going to end up in Hell- change your ways. He didn't know what he hated more: the "God loves you" mentality or the fact he had to endure it while the priest tended the flower garden. At first he relished, almost drooled over, the prospect of being outdoors and the reprieved from Sister Gracie Sausage. Of course, that was well before he tangled up in the dreaded honeysuckle, complete with snapping poison Ivy.

To top it off, Sam had the nerve to laugh when it happened. All of it was his fault and Sam could only laugh in that innocent way that had started to grind on Dean's nerves—on his last nerve. One more pluck and it could break, and right now, the bubbles on his back played a concerto on that tenuous string.

Moving with abandon, tossing about like a jacked-up clown in a blender, Dean drove his back downward, digging it against the slippery nylon of the tent and the rugged earth beneath him. Up until that point, he had almost forgotten that wrinkle of his imprisonment. Three weeks of detention, a school year at an end, his father's return, and then smacked with another bad luck. A young man of his talents sentenced to the vile, unimaginable, highly overrated- camping. Still, the rough rocks poking out of the ground scraped his rash in most pleasant of ways.

Once the urgent itch need passed, he drifted on the borders of sleep, groused incoherently over his predicament, and wrapped the blanket until it encased his whole body. Not even the itch, thoughts of Darth Lloyd or Sister Sausage, the sinewy earth, or sharing the tent with damn near everyone, including Parrot Sam, broke into the dark blanket cocoon. Yet for some reason, his mind gave him a familiar twinge.

The dribbling of his mind bullied him to remember, as it always does. Sometimes, he curled on a bed, lying motionless as if he tamped year's worth of injustice back up the memory spigot- a spider crawling back into the crevices of his most painful thoughts.

Before long, that sprinkle thought swelled and flood him. Every drop of thought screamed "Why?"

Dean doubted if there could be an answer worthy enough- not for someone like her. That question burned in an ever present ache. No one bothered to attempt a response, save for the time Bobby flashed a care-worn, sympathy smile. They never talked about her, his honeysuckle sweet mother, except to claim some kill in her honor, as if she were only an idea from a long dead civilization and not the person he tucked him in or made him wear that stupid bunny costume when he was three.

Strangely, he gladly accepted the thought of wearing the pink fluffy ears again, if only to hear her long- dead laugh. And, what a laugh it was. Just then, he realized he couldn't make the sound resurface in his, and it panged that he couldn't call forth the sound of it. Precisely where the memory had gone remained heartbreakingly elusive.

And who was to blame for that: Dad. Maybe her memory would comfort him if John allowed any discussion of her. He begrudged the idea that she would erase and fade entirely except for her battle cry name. Surely, that would kill him. The persistent moratorium on things that reminded them of his mother had already gouged his soul. If he lost her memory, nothing would matter ever again.

He groused, instantly angry. At this precise moment, his fury firmed and regrettable, it was only now he realized how utterly alone, in the literal sense, he was. Too quiet. Gone were the constant grumbles of his father and the mimicking chirps of Sam. Too quiet. An electric thought moved so rapid, whipping out the angry, that he jumped from his doze as if he had been drowning. And in some sense, he surely was. Yet, all thoughts of why swallowed back in the void and now all that mattered was Sam.

Shooting up from his blanket, he scrambled to Sam's area first. John had the stand his own, but not Sammy. Ripping the sleeping bag up, he expected to find a small frame rolled into a tight slumbering and snoring ball in the wadded mess. Denied! Empty!

Panic might have set in, given time, yet Dean didn't get that luxury. A deep growl echoed outside of the tent followed by the distant sound of his little brother asking someone where they were going.

Something had taken Sam right under his nose, as he grumbled about poison ivy and dead laughs. He admonished himself for being so selfish and stupid. Without another thought of guilt, he acted, grabbing a gun, whipping the tent zipper open, and stalking towards the echoing sounds from a distant part of the dense woods.

He ran and ran. He ran as his face frosted with misty pre-rain, chilling this cheeks cold. He jumped over the brow of a hill, pushed through brambles, and hurdled beyond up-thrown roots. Wooden branch hands lashed out of him, grabbing and trapping with desperation. He ran until his slender legs numbed and buckled. Somehow, he kept his balance, drawing closer to the sounds.

"I'm coming."

Muttering the warning as a way to give himself a reassurance, Dean had no intention of giving the evil thing that took Sam any such comfort. Shoot first and shoot again. After all, it had his brother and who knew what it did to his father. He ran, jumped, and drove onward until, finally, he caught sight of the mop of Sam's head.

Before he glimpsed the creature that took the boy, he heard it. The deep, wet growl followed by a piercing howl. The noise rumbled from the foliage, bouncing in a helix of sound in the thick branches until seemed to spring from all directions.

Planting his legs firmly, he stood his ground and raised the gun, tracing his aim as the sounds rippled on every side. Then, without warning, it bounded, lunged, splattered him, and pinned him down without fight. In that moment, all he could do was lay there. His arms and legs stuck out from under the slathering beast.

The fear that circulated in his vein turned to a shock of disbelief when the large Bloodhound, Caleb's monster of a dog, slicked an extraordinary, large tongue down his face. Gobs of spittle dribbled and dropped on this neck and face, while Dean kicked in disgust.

"Good boy, Coop!" A voice said amid the sound of his large hands clapping together in a joyous boom. "Nice playing dead, Dean!"

"Damn you!" Dean said, attempting speak with gritted teeth to not swallow doggie drool.

"Get the dog off him." Bobby ordered in a tone that inferred "moron".

"You're no fun."

After several sturdy yanks on the dog's collar, Caleb quelled the excited mutt into submission, even though it whined to re-wallow with its prey again.

Dean glared daggers at Cooper and Caleb with a low growl erupting deep in his gullet. After a tense silence and a few heavy breaks, he spoke with usual temperance. In an act of defiance, he shoved the dog further from him.

"You suck!" Dean bellowed to master and canine. .

"No, he licks," Caleb corrected.

"Not the dog. You suck!"

When the hunter searched, glancing about for an ally, Bobby shrugged. It wasn't his fault that a young boy, if Dean really tried, could verbally spar rings about Caleb, or anyone for that matter. Then again, Dean had enough verbal venom to take on a debate team, if there was one of insults. For the moment, the kid kept his banter arsenal tame, but Bobby wasn't sure for how long.

"Don't look at me. You do suck." Bobby said as he readjusted his hat to give Dean a wink.

Suddenly, Sam tackled Dean with a hug. "Cooper looked like he hand human legs and hands with you under him." An instant later, Sam bounded on Cooper, riding him like a small pony before they both rolled around in the dirt. Sam laughed and the dog barked in some strange conversation at Dean's expense.

"Your tracking is weak, kid," Caleb said in satisfaction, "If we were--"

"For your information, I almost shot your dog in the head. If I didn't see its ugly mug coming at me, I would have. What are you doing out here?"

"Need your pop's help with something. Had some business. Sorry, I had to bring the slobber boys with me." Bobby gave Caleb a 'cool it' nudge.

"Where's Dad?" Dean asked.

"You heard him, Ace. We got serious business." Caleb said, letting a smirk form afterwards.

Not to be outdone, Dean smiled. "Like holy Crap Batman serious or--"

"Nothing we can't handle. You were so dead asleep when we got here, we left you resting. Having bad dreams again?" Bobby asked softly, changing the subject.

"Is he dreaming about what a candy ass he is?"

"Oh!" Sam exclaimed and wagged a scolding finger, completely covered in dog drool, in Caleb's direction.

"I think you've had enough fun. Why don't you let the boy be and Sam doesn't need cussing lessons."

"They need tons of lessons," Caleb, the wannabe drill-sergeant bellowed. "Listen up! If you want to survive my specialized, highly undersized, boot camp--"

"You can't camp in a boot." Sam questioned.

"Dude, kindergarteners out think you!" Dean laughed.

"What are you smirking about, boy?" He yelled with such force and sputters that he sounded like William Shatner- an extremely over exaggerated one at that.

"Probably your face," Dean suggested.

"If you train under me you will be—"

"Dim witted buffoons!" Bobby added.

"Killing machines! Grr!"

"Grrrrr," Sam repeated, following the mess with a giggle.

"And what's so funny?"

Sam only smiled bigger and laughed harder, getting more into the game. He quickly saluted, flicking a gob of dog snot from his fingers as he goes.

"I said: What are you smiling at!"

"Nothing, sir," Sam said.

"That's better, Private Winchester".

"What a dick," Dean said.

"You said a bad word!"

"Get use to it." Dean told his little parroting brother.

"Neither of you maggots will have an inch of comfort – "

By this point, even Bobby laughed at the obscurity that Caleb could train anyone to do anything that didn't involve women or cheating at cards, but the boys laughed and that made it all seem worth the illusion.

"I will break that smug superior attitude right off those puppy cute faces. And all this god-damned time you pansies are mine!"

A smidge of smile nipped at Dean's face, which promptly slurped away by the licking dog tongue.

"Eww- get off."

"Any questions?"

"Yeah. Do you think god says human-dammit?" Dean asked, sharply.

"Oh, no. More like Dean-Dammit! Alright! Recruit when I bark," Caleb ordered and then pointed to Cooper, who wagged a tail in expectation. "Hell, if he barks, you snap to. He says Milkbones you get them. You got me. No complains. No whine-"

As if on cue, Cooper emitted a long confused whine and titled his head at his master. Tiny fingers flew over the dog's muzzle as Sam tried to quell the hound.

"No whines, Coopie!"

Leave it to Sam to burst any tension that might have remained, leaving the groups in stitches of good humor. Somewhere during the laughs, Dean finally noticed his father watching the action from a few yards away. As usual, John's stoic faced showed nothing. It didn't take a sign for Dean to know something had happened or was about to happen.

When John detected his son's inspecting eyes, he gave a nod. Dean noticed a man in that precise moment. Someone he didn't know, even in passing. However, Dean knew he didn't like this new arrival. The man, a hunter for sure- tall and lean, with wiry muscle, argued with John in an inaudible tone while John displayed no hint of expression.

A switch. A snap. Dean's instincts clanged and he struggled to hear whatever his father and the stranger discussed, but the few words he made out soon drowned in a massive dog splatter from Cooper, who seemed content to continue Dean's tongue bath from earlier.

"Get off, Dammit!"

"That's DOG- DAMMIT!" Sam said in discovery, puffing his cheeks out triumph.

When the frivolity calmed, Dean glanced back, finding the stranger gaped directly at him.

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**NOW... Jasper, Tennessee**

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Ripples of satisfaction danced in its vacant eyes as it waited patiently for his prize to obey and inevitably Dean followed so easily now.

"So long. So long. Brother Bone must come home. For his sins, he must atone!"

The creature's voice taunted like a spoiled child on a playground, nevertheless it controlled the situation with the simples of words at a ridiculously fast rate. With each step Dean took towards it, the craw of revenge swelled.

"Skeletons!" The singsong melody ended, dropping into an anger lament. "Day to Pay!"

Despite the change in its attitude, Dean moved more at easy, taking a step beyond the door threshold. Finding it strange how welcome he started to feel, he puzzled at the dopey smile that froze on his face. Even his legs pumped faster and smoother towards the calling thing. Beyond reason and beyond everything he knew as a hunter, his arms reached up much like a child yearning for the embrace of a parent. He wanted this. Somehow, he needed to get to it.

His awareness didn't snap back, even at the sight of the leather skin, ripples so grotesque, warped, blackened, and fused that the hostile eyes bulged out abnormally from the socket. The tumor landscape of the thing's face, reminiscent of the body of a squashed bug, should have been enough to cause mass exodus; however, Dean smiled in a numb, sheer glee.

The sense of danger that once saturated him drained away. Each step moved him closer to hazy emptiness, as if a large snake devoured him in one gulp of numbness. Years of experience died in the fuzzy need to go straight to the monster that beckoned him. Dean must go. Moreover, the creature needed him. He had to help. Had to be its friend.

His vision tunneled, stealing away every sound, sight, and smell. The only things that matter in this dark abyss was his friend. Lost so deep in the nothingness, it wasn't odd that he didn't notice as someone wrapped around his waist. Backwards he tumbled, rolling with a psychedelically whirl of bright colors and shattering sounds. All the while, the thing holding him refused to release, twisting and turning in a jangled mesh until he and his captor landed with a hard thud in gravel and dirt.

Side by side and face to face, they stopped spinning. If Dean had awareness that Sam was near, he didn't show a spark of recognition to his brother, who just toppled him; Sam briefly took in Dean's vacant expression before he turned his attention upon the creature. He cradled Dean closer in protection. In one motion, he fired a shotgun blast at the creature.

A pop, a squish, a crunch. The metal twisted into the bark-like flesh, pounded the metal into the sinewy muscles, and screwed deep into bone. For a long time, the thing puzzled a glance, waiting for any reaction from Sam than the one it received: In disbelief, it gaped at the blood-gorged hole squarely in the rib cage.

Taking no chances, Sam bolted to his feet, leaving the shell-shocked Dean in a position of protection. Only when Sam grew close enough to hear the creature speak did he pause.

"All my friends are skeletons."

A sudden smile, with as much meaning as the frozen grin on a gargoyle statue, twitched on the creature's badly fused face. It stood in expectation as if Sam would invite it in and hand it a beer.

"Ahh. Not our friend!"

Whatever response it wanted, the answer came only in the form of another blast. Sam drew back his hand, arched the weapon forward, and lined it up with the dark thing's moving mouth, which still babbled nonsense. From this distant the flare of the gun burned the skin on the already bulbous face before it ravage a nasty, gushing vacancy where half a skull should have been. The leftover portion flapped backwards with a jerk and pop. The body landed with a rapid thud.

In almost the same instant, Dean gasped, sputtering in a mouth full of dust covered air. His prone frame quaked and wobbled. He mumbled warbled objections, although it was not clear to what. Crawling desperately towards the fallen thing, he snatched a bit of skull bone that had landed nearby his position. The resonating boom of the blast still echoed in his aching head, swirling with the lingering effects of numbness and concern. Try as he might, Dean's body splat about like water starved fish spasm attempting to stand on uncoordinated fins.

Just as Dean protested, Sam hauled him over one shoulder and kept the gun trained for any other signs of attack. Unfortunately, he lost grip when Dean doubled increasingly sharp tremors. Within a flash, Sam scooped Dean on one knee, feeling the biting nature of the tremors more acutely and feeling the ravages on Dean's shunted breathing.

While his body wobbled in odd angles, Dean shoved air from his dirty covered lips. No knowing why, he had to know what had happened to the strange, yet enticing creature. His hollow-thought eyes searched for the dark's return, finding nothing. He panted in heavy wheezes like a whined horse, breathing fast and slathering.

Despite those uneasy breaths, Sam diverted his focus between Dean and any danger, calling out to his brother when his gun traced for any minuscule movement beyond them. For the longest tick, the only motion, disturbing and unstopping came from Dean. After last incomprehensible concern, Dean shook violently and his eyes blown wide in glassy paralysis.


	4. Lil Pink Houses

**_Author's note: I finished this flashback piece and wanted to post it before I made it any longer. I swear these things will tie together and explain everything. I hope to have the next update on by Saturday. Thanks for the reviews, its good to know you are reading. Peace and Love! Oh, and yes, that is a real town name. Been there and laughed about it. Course, I have been to a real mystery hole and a gravity hill, so I don't know if that makes me a sad monkey. Or the men I date, since both time a boyfriend took me to those places. Man, my dating life really sucks!  
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**Then… Big Ugly, West Virginia- July 1990.**

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The epileptic shaking of his hand, a quivering mad hatter flux, couldn't pry the odorous meat from the encasing metal tomb. Banging on the side, Dean stopped when he heard a sloppy plop and suction without a single budge to the contents. With a disgusted groan, he bumped the container again only to have the slippery bile ooze upon down his fingertips until it slid to the base of his wrist. Why must it always be something gooey or slimy? Dean shuttered and flicked the post-traumatic, surely radioactive waste, snot.

Glaring at his unearthly opponent, he found the ripples mesmerizing. For some unknown reason, to him and anyone else who ever faced this dilemma, he just had to stare at the substance that painstakingly remained and sloshed restrained in its coffin home. Enough was enough. He was a hunter- a good one, and today was not the day he would be bested, especially by the likes of a lunchmeat.

Upturning his nose, Dean shifted his head as if that act of turning away would change tonight's dinner selection. Finally, he bit the dinner bullet, grabbing a knife with an apprehensive swing, jabbing the Spam with a sudden jerk, dividing the kill with abandon, and tossing each slippery slice into the fry pan.

"Gawwkk."

As a last act of protest, he scooted the empty can off the end of the counter into the trash. Thankfully, that one well-aimed swoop saved him from another gob of afterbirth getting on him. He was sure the porkish product as a whole really shot right out of a dog's anal tube; the thought stifled a gag in his throat. Then again, he might prefer to eat a dog's ass. At least he knew where the dog had likely been. The meat's ingredients remained the ultimate mystery, not even his Dad would take on that puzzle. However, for some reason on earth, they had to eat it. Maybe that was a bigger mystery.

After a newly successful dinner kill, he watched the first of the fat granules melt and flee the heating pan, spilling blobs of oil on the stove and the crusty stack of dishes. Spam, the great nemesis, reminded him that he had other chores to do. Sometimes being the big brother sucked. Whom was he kidding! It always sucked!

"Clean up after dinner." Dean announced as he pushed a few more plates and bowels into the towering pile that layered in the sink. He hated dishes. In fact, he despised this job more than anything. One day if he found a genie, he'd wish never to do dishes again, but quickly questioned the likelihood of that. Given that he couldn't dream the chore away, he returned to grumbling in his mind, imagining other jobs he hoped to pawn off on Sam when the kid got older: , dishes, cutting the Spam, and laundry of raunchy underwear.

Then, as if he realized how irrational that idea seemed, he chuckled. After all, dirty drawers were cake after burning a corpse. Although, the encrusted dishes had started to resemble the pallor of a dead body. The thought of salt and burned crossed his mind, but he simply doused the pile with enough suds for ten loads, tossed in a few pots and pans, and turned the hot water all the way up until the sink filled. Long after the water had stopped, bubbles grew into squeaky foam popping silently alongside the crackle of the Spam grease. For a time, Dean imagined the sounds as part of a rock song intro until the makeshift rock band added crashing percussion by toppling a plate upon the floor. Shards flew in a mosaic across the floor.

"Sonva--!"

The combination of the shattering plate and Dean's bellow drew Sam's attention with a gasping start. Up until that point, he happily amused himself staying out of Dean's way in the Indian stronghold that Dean had created under the stairs from a piece of rope, two nails, an old table cloth, and a hole filled sheet. Angling his eye to one of the holes, he followed Dean's movements during the clean up and particular the way Dean's face crumpled tight.

Recently, his big brother had been distant. More and more, their Dad barked at Dean about everything. It just wasn't fair- not fair they had to move so much, that they had no mommy , and that Daddy left them all the time.

These thoughts enticed him to chance a peek from his homemade teepee with a frown drawn on his face before his entire head made it out the opening. The two Indian war stripes painted on his face mimicked the downturn of his mouth.

As if Dean felt Sam's inspection, he glanced down at the faux Indian warrior. The last thing he needed in the clean up was someone getting in the mix.

"Just a mess."

Much to Sam's relief, Dean nodded a 'don't worry' signal, all but ordering Sam to stay out of the way. The young boy relaxed and shifted back inside his fabric sanctuary. He waited patiently for a second until he knew with certainty that Dean was occupied. After a few deep breaths and listens to the scraping of a dustpan, he pulled out a new box of waterproof matches.

The tiny fingers graced over the sides, feeling the raised bumps. Carefully, he slid open the smooth cardboard case, plucked out a brightly hued matchstick, and eyed it in wonder. The magic of it all nearly made him giggle, but this had to be a secret- a place for him alone. Plopping a bit of glue on the match, he tossed it randomly onto a wooden model of his creation.

Renew by his inflated mission, his fingers dabbed the intoxicating glue on randomly placed matchsticks. Hands flew in blur that his project neared completion. A few more sticks and Sam had a winner on his hands. Surely, something of this worth would please be the envy of all who looked upon its majesty. His hand, still plump with baby fat, grubbed another stick and then another.

After adding a few more and a toothpick, he inspected the soundness of his masterpiece. Just to be sure, he tested the latest addition: a toothpick, a bright blue one from the Jolly Rodger Crab Shack. Altogether, he crushed on the inspiring and unsurpassable, in Sam's eyes any way, malformed model of a house.

The representation skewed to the right, the left side wobbled unlevel, and the roof peaked in a slant. The bottom portion glittered with a coat of pink nail polish, which Sam discovered in a motel room weeks ago. He had slathered on a thick coat until the bottle emptied, leaving a portion still in the natural state. In total, the small house contained enough matches for a lifetime of camping trips, several bent straws, a plastic toothpick sword, and two popsicles sticks. The latter saved from the time Bobby got them ice cream as a reward for lining up hubcaps in the junkyard. Sam found no better way to honor that day than to add it to his monument.

When he decided it was good, he rubbed the residue glue between his thumb and forefinger. Sam dug into the grooves of his fingertips, itching and scratching at the filmy glue covering until the adhesive and a layer of skin ripped off. Sam picked as his finger, pulling a strip of pink, hot skin from his index finger. He hissed as the last portion ripped at first joint. Running a fingernail inside the fresh groove, he twitched when he felt the sting of the angry flesh. No matter or no time to mourn the loss of flesh, skin would grow back and this was important. This time he did giggle, but only in the smallest of ways.

The joyous triumph ended when a flaying spatula whapped again the sheet side of his tent. He barely had time to pop his head out and spring back inside for cover before a cacophony of clattered dishes spiraled in a helix crash and splintered to the floor, tumbling Dean amid the mess.

Apparently, Dean had made the ill decision to try to catch the avalanche, which now rewarded him with a seeping, scarlet gash on his hand. Just when the situation appeared to reach barrel bottom, the sizzling meat silvers morphed into a charcoal substance black, spewing ebony smoke and flames.

Ignoring the gash, Dean reacted on the spot and smothered the pan fire before it had a real chance of developing into a fire. Danger averted, he glared at the mess and heaved his shoulder in a silent sob. Carefully, he held his reaction back. Winchesters don't cry-- Rule #1 in John's handbook and Dean remembered it well.

Instead, he slid down the length of the counter, avoided the glass shards, and toppled on the floor. Devoid of expression, he sank over in a collapsed hunch, pulling into a tight ball with his head on his knees. Rule #1. Rule #1. It felt like an eon passed as he repeated the mantra without words. He snapped back his head gazing at the pool of smoke that lingered near the ceiling.

"Dean?"

How and when Sam joined him, Dean couldn't say; however, Sam titled his head in wonderment with an innocence splattered about his little face. He was weak. Burnt dinner and broken dishes had him completely off guard and totally unaware of Sam's location. Rule #2: Watch Sam. Maybe Caleb had been right, he was getting weak.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Sam!" He barked, keeping the frustration in his voice and not his eyes. No matter how he tried, his fist clenched in tight balls and his breathing hitched.

"Why won't you look at me?"

"Go play!"

"Are you going to cry?"

"Get this straight. I'm a Winchester. We don't cry like a little girl. I'll never cry like a girl. Or scream like a little girl and nothing will ever make me do that! You got it!"

Sam pushed a caramel lock from his face and smiled at Dean, realizing for the first time his creation was in his hands. For several moments he stared at the matchstick house. He loved it, even the mismatch colors. It was a mess, but the most beautiful mess he had seen. He screwed his eyes shut, imagining what it would be like, what it once was like. It surprised Sam how not having a home hurt, and he wondered if Dean felt the same. Suddenly, he understood that maybe Dean needed it more.

"I—I want," Sam bleated the words, waiting for a whiplash reaction.

For Dean, the prospect of Sam whining served only to fuel the iron of his annoyance. "Just stop!"

If Sam heard the demand, he ignored it, jutting the matchstick house in Dean's face. The gobs of model cement, still wet, stung his inflamed nostrils. The mixture of the glue and burnt Spam nipped water from his eyes.

"Are you trying to gas me?"

"It does kinda smell," said the hopeful voice beside him.

For the first time, Dean glanced at it, commenting eyes critiquing the mess that his little brother offered. Instantly, he regretted his Draconian verbal snaps when he saw Sam's beam of pride.

"What is—"

"It's a house."

"Oh. I-- I can see that," Dean said cautiously taking a closer look at the slanted roof. "I see the square-ish, eh, kinda has that shape. It's a house, eh, yeah. Why would you build a house?"

"So we'll always have one. No matter where we go."

"Dude, you're weird."

The insult put a serious damper on the young boy's spirit. Instantly, Sam shamed for having such a stupid idea in the first place. Silence fell upon the kitchen for a moment as he waited for Dean to instruct him on where he went wrong.

No matter what else you could say about Sam Winchester, he had a stare that made Dean squirm. In a beat, Dean's shoulders felt sharply, relaxing. His face smoothed out as if a crinkled piece of paper flattened.

"But thanks. This is why you had all those matches!"

"Yeah."

"You could have just told me."

"Am I still weird?"

"Yeah, but in the 'my favorite brother' kind of way."

"Yes!" Sam blurted, excitedly.

"We can keep it in the car on the dash—"

"I think Dad wouldn't get it. How about I put this in a special place in, uh, a very special—"

"Really special."

"Yeah. Oh, in my duffel! When it dries, I'll put carry in my duffle so I always have it okay?"

"I did good?"

"You did great."

"Yes!" Sam screamed before he paused in deep ponder. "Dean, I'm the only brother, right?"

"After you, why would Dad want anymore?"

"Not funny!"


	5. Masochist to which I cater

The conscious amputation of will startled Dean. For the briefest of seconds, he refused the inevitable of the situation. No amount of denial would change the fact that he had returned to them, the place in between breathing and being a stiff. Moments ago, he did the unthinkable—became a phantasm of himself, walking towards some evil thing. He didn't remember dying or being hurt, yet he spot past go right into the grey, where nothing existed except your own trifle of thoughts and the proverbial judgment, not of deeds but regrets. Dean sure had volumes of both.

When apathy pumped into his veins, he resolved to fight. He froze, suspending all thoughts in a lock down and bidding his soul to stop moving. For the longest time, he didn't move until the nothing forcibly plummeted into the emptiness. Absent of choice, Dean waited for Death just as it surely waited for him. Collapsing and Crushing, the void closed in until his willpower fogged. No escape. No hope

He screamed a howl so long his voice graveled and a cragged rock of breath jammed. His mouth gaped in a silent scream. Only a strange gurgle popped and hiss from the gaped cavity. Really, he had no words or turn of phrase sufficient to hold death at bay anyway.

Any moment, a single swing of the sickle, sharp and final, would fall, puncture his soul, and drag him to the pits. Until then, Dean had the opportunity wallow, even if he didn't want to. Time, elusive and cruel, baited him long enough with false hope just to see him squirm. There was always just enough seconds to dwell on the "what ifs." Make no mistakes, it was coming; it was only a matter of when. The echo path mapped out before him-- Destination: Hell, Party of One. To these feelings, he's seasoned. Been there, done that, lather, rinse, repeat. He didn't even want to think about the dark demons that waited for another shot of him. Sadly, Dean looped on the brink of death and the afterlife with an unwanted fondness. He didn't particular care for it, but it sure liked him.

Death doesn't frighten him, as it should. He had already blazed into that fear, the ultimate equalizer of men, and found himself wanting- lacking. All he held to be true about himself and what he loved exposed and raped in ways even a sadist would blush. To him, what came after the big universal mystery was the real horror. He may be the only man who tasted the other side; it should have prepared him for another round, but it didn't. Pain, that common habit, he could tolerated. Physical strikes meant nothing compared with the lack that burned like a phobia.

He detested the void of his family and friends. Sure, he started out holding to their memories as a shrine of protection. That only lasted a decade or two. When the loneliness set in, the bitter lack of having them warped and turned him into the vile thing. He gladly would bleed for a single apologetic simile or the smallest reassuring lie. No one there. Never there.

The unfairness seeped in him, as dark and blank as the void around him. He played his part, stopped the world from falling, and saved all he could. Somehow, it was never enough. Torn from the fire once only to have his second chance life stolen by a cancerous thing in the dark of the night. How cliché, he mused, to go out with puny whimper.

A scrap of resolve motivated him to strike out with his legs, which the vacant shroud effortlessly restrained. His limbs felt scorched and hindered by the simplest touch. In the depths of his bones, he felt the shutout of everything. The rut of his death path gutted deeper, easing his slide back to the damnation.

The sheer indignity of going out softly as a frightened little boy scraped his soul. Even a child kicked and screamed when confronted, he just forsake that he had no choice in the fight. He hated when things yanked his hunter pants down. Achingly, he stretched out his fingers to block his fall until the digits plowed a grove. He scratched and clawed for all the he's worth to scramble out of the hell rabbit hole. Strips of burgundy dirt flesh embedded into his fingernails as he clambered for more life.

He wouldn't die this way, not like a pup that chases after a car. Sam wouldn't wake up and find his dead body on the roadside. He couldn't live with that. He had too many faces in his regretful mind already. Most times, whenever the world stilled, the faceless ones peered and accusatory words blared. No amount of penitence, kills, or saving innocents counterbalanced the things he had done, especially to Sam. He wanted more.

Damn it! This place gripped you hard and even with hope to fight. It always won. He said it. The shock of his thoughts whammed him, pulling him in. There was no denying he was on repeat. Vaguely, he wondered how Sam would feel, if he knew. Just thinking about it now maimed Dean's conscience. The thoughts clumped a pile up of remorse when he reflected on the day Lilith killed him. It was then he wished for it. Even as Sam, mouth scream wide and eyes horror blasted, held him as he bled to death on a stranger's floor.

The selfish need of wanting more shrieked in his minds in those last few seconds. The wordless begging to have another chance overrode his better sense. He dreaded, even now, that something would take that plea to heart and steal Sam's life away. After all the time he had been back, he couldn't face Sam with that truth when it meant all that was important to him as a payment. He couldn't start a conversation with "Hey, dude. You know when I died. Guess what? I pansy'd up and pleaded to live. That might have been enough to punch your ticket. Hope you don't mind that I am a greedy bastard."

He exhaled, feeling sick, ashamed, and trapped. Just another day in the Winchester world that didn't go as planned. But, who was he kidding? He never really sketched out what his life should be. How could he? All he really wanted was keep his family close and safe, and he mucked that, just like everything else he had touched.

He didn't have to go too far into his memory to find another example. His one last chance had only made matters-- Lilith, Ruby, Uriel, Lucifer-- worse. No matter how much good he left behind, it all crumbled with no one to tend the wicked garden. Neither Heaven nor Hell had plans to pass along his mantle. In fact, both sides readied to reward humans with death and destruction with him as the toss-away catalyst.

Now, he felt the pinch of his final bonus: Death by some new, controlling thing. He summoned the likeness of the filament string, knobby face, and for some reason, it felt as right as it did wrong. The constant croon of words that stole his senses made his mind waivered on the fence of indecision- a babe trying to discover the decide between candy and cake.

Dean, in all his misery, cried out softly at the newest cruel mockery. The voice still spoke fresh and comfortable in his recall.

"All my friends are skeletons"

The simple turn of phrase and harmony of the words spanked him like a spoiled child. Like so many others before him, he wished to only to please it. While his mind drifted over the madness of enticement and apprehension, the faceless ones sprang at him from the dark place. Without forethought, terror beyond phobia skewered him deeper into a putrid sludge. Drowning, Drowning. Drowning.

There, in the muck, the bleached nameless ones clamored for his blood as the next contribution, a sacrifice to those unsaved. Suddenly, so many icy cold serpents gnawed at him.

"Little voice. Little scream."

A ribcage of vines, terrible twisting arms in a tug-of-war, heaved him to a gory world. The arctic grip tightened against the vast contrast to his heated flesh. He bucked, keeping some small glimmer of himself alive.

"No... No...No." Dean mouthed, thinking the words could not possibly escape the passage of his lips. "Dark place….no…!" he grumbled. A horrified, tremble played along each struggled syllable as his throat filled with profuse tang of copper. Blood. Drowning. Dark Place.

"Cute as a bug," The jigsaw faced creature spoke as he submerged Dean into crimson gloom.

Drowning. Blood. Just when his mind swelled mushy and lungs crammed, a shaded man jerked him up, claiming him from the gloom. His body suspended in tug-of-war between the two warring Titans.

"He's mine." The shadow man offered as an abrupt tentacle wrapped around his Dean.

The soft tone shook him to his core, demanding his attention. He shook, blinking wildly and squinting to see. A series of bright stars burst behind his eyes and his hands cover his face.

"DEAN!" A voice shrieked from the gloom.

In a snap, he responded. Eyes opened full. Lungs exhaled a large gasp. He awoke fast and intense into life. The violent shift bolted more panic into his frayed nerves.

"I killed it. I got it," Sam said to the confused face peering at him.

Drained from the experience, Dean's jaw slacked and gaped to breathe. Squinting, he blinked to find equilibrium. Finally, his awareness tainted the edges, crumpling in like an origami fold until Sam's face, plastered by concern and shock, emerged beyond the dark fringes.

"Can you hear me!" Sam bellowed the demand

"I- I was-," Dean sputtered incomprehensible, "I was dead?"

As he shifted his head, his eyes matched levels with the dead body of the creature. Baffled, he gawked at the carcass and Sam alternately.

"Never going to let that happen."

"I was—"

Licking his lips, Sam tried to smother calmness over his words. One of them had to keep thinking clearly.

"I saw the dark place," Dean reasoned. "Just before—"

"You must be in shock. "You crashed on me, man. I-"

"This is wrong," said Dean blankly.

Try as he might, Sam couldn't tug Dean's slouched dead weight. If that wasn't enough to concern him, the rabble of gibberish flying from Dean certainly was.

"Hell. I know. Going back to Hell. In the dark place, I saw. I--"

Realization, like a lightning bolt, shuddered him to cobra coil, pulling his knees in close for protection. Dean's body, soaked by sweat, banged with an uneasy, strange rhythm. To quell the pounding, he curled into a fever-nipped ball against Sam. The move so quick, even Sam startled.

"They took me back! I won't go back!"

"Whoa. Easy."

Dean shook his head. Maybe this time he didn't have to give in. Maybe he could break the rules just for once. He begged. "I can't do it. I can't."

"You're right here. I promise."

"It's them. They called for me."


	6. Shirts or Skins?

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_**Author's note: Thanks to those reading still. I know the clues aren't adding up yet, but they are there. The next chapters will start putting the pieces in place. Sometimes, I do risky or strange stuff just to see if it works and I appreciate the advice. I know this one is kinda out there but I hope the pay off is worth it in the end.  
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**Then…. Rush, Oklahoma. June 1990

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The sneaker-covered feet dangled, not nearly long enough to dream of touching the matted carpet in the latest squares house. Stretching out from the edge of the bed, Sam sure tried, twisting and turning to will his legs to grow. At best, he managed to touch the box springs, and let out a jubilant grunt. Content with his success, he tapped a gentle rhythm using the back of his heels against the mattress edge. During a considerably hefty knock, he almost lost balance and toppled from the bed. A few thumps later, he gained confidence, rapping louder.

"You keep doing that and the bed bugs'll wake up a swarm!"

"Un-nuh. Bed bugs aren't real."

"Keep telling yourself that."

Sam stopped, giving Dean's warning a stern consideration before he whacked again.

"Dude, you're hopeless."

"When I get big, I want real big legs," Sam bellowed.

"To go with your big head?"

Offering a cross look as a response, Sam twisted a cheap plastic ring on his finger and then flicked at a wind-up toy on his knee. The miniature horse clomped in a ratta-tat-tat, drawing Dean's full attention.

"Alright piddles, time for bed."

"Piddles?" Sam asked.

"Oh, yeah that's you."

"That's not my name."

"Sure it is. Figure it out."

Slowly, Dean began the nightly check of responsibilities. First things first: take off Sam's shoes. As soon as Dean worked at the knots, a dust cloud poofed from the crust laces. Dean yanked desperately at the tangled knots with the tea colored strings snapping and crinkling in his fingers. After a fierce battle, the ties loosed and the shoes freed from Sam's sweaty and stinky feet.

Having sense and experience, Dean chucked the pain to the floor well before the full odor hit his nostrils. The dirty duo landed with a ceremonious thud, raining bits of caked mud scatters from the grooved underside.

"Do you have to splash in every mud puddle?"

"I like puddles."

"You could take off those before you get dirt in our bed."

"I like 'em. Their cool," Sam said dejected, eyeing alternately his bare feet and the lost, precious sneakers forced to rest on the floor.

"You can like them again tomorrow. Just like all the toys. Hand them over."

Begrudgingly, Sam piled one trinket after another in Dean's open palm: A plastic ring that glows in the dark, the creepy wind-up horse, a bottle cap, a rubber band, and a pig. Shaking his head, he stuff the items in the night stand so Sam could keep watch over the plastic flock.

"Is that all?"

"Yeppers."

As he lifted Sam from the mattress edge to the middle, a larger assortment of balls and toys scattered upon the floor. Not surprising to Dean, there always seemed to be a mountain of toys. Carefully, he apprehended the escapees and tossed them into the custody of the drawer.

"You've hit the gumball machine hard again. How many quarters this time?"

"All of them! You collect them all. See-"

"I get it. You and your toys."

"Why don't you like toys?"

"I do. Just not your kind."

Playfully, Sam wagged his tongue in a spectacular raspberry in a stealthy attempt to cover the break out of a toy ring. He jammed the ring, stashing his hand suspiciously under the covers.

"I saw that."

"What?"

A quick smile hit Dean's eyes, displaying the only indication of enjoyment. He narrowed gaze, drawing his mouth in an exaggerated pout like old Noir film stars.

"Don't make me mad. Not again," Dean said.

"You can't."

Flopping about for effect, Dean moved disjointed. Once he stopped, he unleashed a growl for effect.

"You know what happens when I get angry."

"Don't!"

"I just can't stop it."

"No. No!

In a flicker, Dean soared upon the bed, tackled his little brother, and managed to get the upper hand. Once his victim, secure and primed for torment, struggle uselessly, Dean allowed a droll grin to shoot at the edge of his lips. "This is the end," Dean announced while his hands drew back ritual and jammed a thousand torturous tickles.

"Say uncle!"

"No!"

"Say Dean's way cool."

No!""

Several fits of laughter later, Sam gasped and gave in.

"UNCLE!"

"Panty weight!"

Letting go, Dean contently roosted on the mattress edge, waiting until Sam resettled into bed.

"I'm so telling Dad."

"Go ahead, punk. I have plans—so many plans."

"Telling!" Sam offered with a silly grin.

"Not if I tell first. Dad always believes—"

Both boys long eyes focused on the vacant bed roll on the other side of the room and instantly were crestfallen. Inquisitive, Sam stared at his big brother, wondering why Dean looked sad so much. In his anxiety, Sam chewed on his bottom lip, leaving a chapped outline upon the tender skin

""Dad's coming home? "

"Tonight I think. "

"I love you the most, Dean."

"Great, first pick of the Dork king!"

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**NOW... **

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Crammed in the metallic box, the leftovers clung to the plastic wrap, barely containing the cesspool of churning juices. With a single poke, a geyser erupted from the meaty mess, splattering a vile gob upon Bobby's hand. As he wiped his hands on his dirt crusted jeans, Bobby eyed Sam with a quizzical, disquieted look.

"You told me to bring it to you," Sam reminded.

"Sorry, I asked. Your description doesn't do it justice," Bobby said as he eyeballed the corpse, ripe with rot, stuffing a portion of the Impala's trunk. "So what do ya call this takeout mess?"

"Dead Bad Guy."

"I like it. Good as name as any. You know, if Dean were in any shape right now, he'd kill us both for this. Might leave a stain in his baby."

"I'd let him take a shot."

"Don't tell him that or he might perk up enough to take a shot. But, his bubby ain't so fortunate to be coming back. Thing looks damn near human-- after you put in on a barbeque."

"Then you think it's possible. Hellfire?"

"Wouldn't shock me. So now, you can go on with your life if you're right?"

"No," Sam said shortly with a snort, "I doubt that is possible when Winchesters are the universal whipping boys for angels and demons.

"Ain't it nice to have the guys on both your shoulders smackin' at your ass?"

"Real riot."

Slamming the trunk shut, Bobby's face lost all signs of delight. "That strange thing did a number on Dean. I'd say that you boys have found a new species. Congrats."

"Don't I feel special? Bobby, the way it looked at me. I can't explain it, but I know it wanted more. I know it doesn't make sense, but it seemed sad with a heap of evil on the side. All that hell talk—"

"Good thing it's dead then."

"Yeah. Doesn't mean I like that it happened. If you had seen him—".

"Don't think I would have liked seeing him out of his gourd."

"One second blank- nothing there- All the substance of Paris Hilton, then straight into Tower of Babble gibberish."

"Hell still has to play on him something fierce."

""It was more. Dean bangs the door like an idiot and goes outside. I rushed after him in a second. In that short of time, it infected him- made him sick. Think I would be used to attacks."

"About as used as you could get running a nail in your foot. What's stuck in my crawl is this doesn't match demon MO. What precisely did it do?"

"It stood there, said strange ass things, and then looked at me like I was an idiot for not understanding."

"What was our wind talker sayin'?"

"Warped Nursery rhymes."

"As if those needed any help in the warp department."

"Friends are skeletons? Then Dean started with the gibberish. The faceless?"

"Not a word that makes sense, right down to a thing yakking instead of killing."

"Skeletons, Shadow man? Sounds like a bad Blair Witch remake with a budget of 3 bucks."

"Seen that twice and I don't understand anything."

"I'm scared for him. What if Dean's right about going back to Hell? I'm not letting that happen again."

"Not going to be a sequel on that one."

"Does any of this strike anything?—"

"Wish it did. Most nursery rhymes were meant as warnings to keep snot nose kids outta trouble. Never known anything to use 'em unless Dean was attacked by a possessed by Dr. Seuss."

"Best answer we've had so far," Sam hated to admit.

"Me neither. Only leaves one question we can answer right now."

"Unless you have a crystal ball, I say we have nothing-"

"Just wondering who's going to bury the green eyes and ham outta the trunk?"

"You've been hanging out with Dean too much."

"Ornery cuss does tend grow on ya. Plus, we got one thing in our favor. Remember the old adage about Heaven doesn't want ya and Hell is afraid of a takeover. "

"Think I read something about that on a keychain."

"Well, whatever side is playing—Saints or Devils, both of 'em want you and Dean on the team. Our trunk poet, if he only drew Dean"

"Maybe a bloodhound for something else?"

"Fits, don't it?"

"Great. Lure him out, crack him, make him deathly sick so you get a first draft pick?"


	7. Good Morning, Vietnam

**Author's note: Since I have been out of action, I am giving you two updates in one. At least the clues and ends are going to go faster now. Hope you enjoy.**

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**Now… Singer's Salvage

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**

"I love the smell of toilet water in the morning," Dean said, whipping up from the swirling bowl. "Hoo-ray!"

Head swimming, he wiped he forehead as he silent begged to hurl and get it over with. He didn't care which end got rid of his gnawing gut as long as it happened soon. Even the acrid smell of the bleach did little except to hammer cresting waves in his hateful stomach. The stinging pain trembled the world around him until he sprawled one of his bristle rough cheeks on the side of the lid.

"Nice 100%," Sam remarked without an inch of malice touching his words.

"Told ya a few more days in county general was the safe bet," Bobby said with the same flavor. "If he thinks that is his top form—"

"Always did suck at math," Dean interrupted with apprehension ripe on his features as he feigned ignorance.

Glaring up, Dean witnessed his overly protective pseudo-parents, Bobby and Sam, hovering and crowding. The awareness of their presence nagged at him, and he shifted uncomfortably, putting a hand under his head to steady his prop over the bowl.

"Only so much mothering you can take before you go bonkers," Dean said, jabbing the words at his watchers. "Besides, I memorized every imaginable soap opera diseases in that time. If either of you get traumatic amnesia brain rot tumors and need a transplant, I got your back."

"You're okay." Sam begged in little more than a murmur and far from sounding convinced.

The pleas sounded so final, that Dean swallowed back a bit of his sarcasm with a stifle of nausea. The pale freckles on his cheeks danced and contorted in sickness. When Dean slipped a few inches and appeared as if he might slip form the porcelain perch, Bobby nudged the sickly man in support.

"Dude. Oh, don't do that. No moving. I'm in charge of moving."

"I'd say he's just about up to speed for sparring at the level of a wet paper bag," Bobby said.

"You just jealous you're aren't this fabu!" Dean offered in a weak cadence like a mewling kitten. Instantly, he hated the sound of his own betraying voice.

"More like fubar," Sam said.

With a bland laugh, Dean snarled his lip to load another round of snark until, unluckily, the quip strangled in a cough. The words rattled around in his gullet unformed and drained into little more than a gurgle.

"Since he's on the 'I'm okay' line, let's get down to business," Bobby interrupted "Before he has another episode."

After a few seconds, Dean beamed a courteous smile. When he attempted to speak, the hoarse weakness overtook his words, but slowly he forced his voice to smooth. "I keep waiting for a little alien bastard to pop out of my belly, looking like Sigourney Weaver."

"Good one," Bobby said. "Didn't think of morning sickness, but now that you mention it—"

"Bite me."

"Witness if you will, classic Dean deflection," Sam said with an urge to shake the crap out his brother.

"Living the dream are ya?"

"Hey, no offense, as dreams go, I'd prefer a hot chick that make me go 'awe sooky sooky', not chatty lumps that make want to toss my cookies."

Dean carefully balanced his hand on the toilet seat to push in a stand. The first hesitant steps rattled his bones until they felt brittle under his full weight. When Sam rushed to help, Dean threw a hand to block the interference, which only served to delay the much-needed assistance, even if Dean wouldn't admit it. As he swung his arm to shove his little brother off, he noticed angry scratches on branding Sam's neck.

"What happened to you? Did you try to go to second base with a girl again?"

"No. This would be all on you."

The revelation sprouted a surprised twinge of guilt, which ceased Dean's protest of support from Sam or Bobby when he joined in. Under the guise of ribbing Dean about the experience, Bobby maneuvered the sick man to flop in a chair without Dean noticing.

Narrowing his focus on the healing grooves, Dean wondered for the first time how animalistic his fit had to have been for Sam's point of view.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Seriously? Scratches? You want me to be concerned with scratches when you had a Looney tunes moment?"

Knowing better than to argue, Dean complained with a little sputter, which protested exhaustion more than anything. The discomfort camped in him under the family inquisition as if they were ready to dissect every thought Dean had when all he wanted to do was forget it ever happened. Forget how hell haunted him, the indignity of getting a whipped by something Sam blew away so easily stabbed his hunter pride. Ass handed too him was not on his to do list—ever!

"So you guys have any divine inspiration about what whammed me?"

"No more than the fuzzy stuff you gave us, Mr. Up Close and Personal," Bobby said.

"Hummpph. Well I channeled Elvis and we met up with that Leather face, which so better have not left a stain on my sweet girl. Oh, and, get this now, we threw an awesome kegger with little blue goblins from Uranus." A laugh caught deep in his throat and he coughed until his chest felt cleaved.

"Well, that's not the strangest thing you ever pulled from your ass," Sam said flatly.

Just as Bobby opened his mouth with further questions, Dean drained of color, looking distant. When Sam waived a frantic, expectant hand before him without getting a reaction, both mean prepared for Dean's worst.

"Don't go zombie on me again," Sam begged.

"All good." Dean mumbled, swaying dizzily as he moved his head to pile into the chair back. "I know what you're trying to do and I appreciate it. I do. That freak slammed me with some bad juju. The rest was a freaky dream. I'm not going to go off and kill you in my sleep cause I have PMS or something."

The tone wasn't pleasing, but Sam would take any reaction from Dean as long as it was a reaction.

"PTSD ain't a joke, kiddo. They looked at your scan and matched up everything. Ain't a crime."

"I'm not like that!" Dean bellowed.

"Okay. Fine. Hmm," Sam said. "Let's see death, violence, assault, kidnapping, torture, and prisoner. Stop us when something' doesn't add up for you and your sucky math! You tell me why your scan—"

"Mushrooms. Magic, magic mushrooms."

Lowering his trucker cap, Bobby squinted harshly and perched on a crate to level with his prey, Dean. Under the seasoned hunter's microscope, Dean squirmed. In a matter of seconds, the intent grew white hot as if a spotlight fell upon the information Bobby wanted to yank to the surface.

"Nice LSD defense," Bobby offered. "We aren't saying you're dangerous, boy. You aren't nuts."

"We understand."

"Do you think I want you to understand?" Dean begged.

"No. That's painfully obvious." Sam huffed "You've been through some crap."

"And both of you are crap free?"

"No, the 'who flung poo' policy covers us all," Bobby agreed.

"We'll I'm glad we could have this Walton moment, but I'm not in the mood to talk about it. Let's say I pencil this discussion in on the 12th of never after my lunch with Jimmy Hoffa. I don't have answers. Man, this has to be what it feels like when you go crackers. There's something I—feel I should know, and I—Look, I got this dread of déjà screw. But, you think something that looks like Texas Chainsaw and the California raisins had children wouldn't seem so--- God, I don't know. Feels like the same dance, same song, different messed up monster!"

His hands traced at the pattern on the chair arm, which swirled as much as Dean's mind. He wondered if sinking into the fibers and fading would be enough to save him from the inquisition. His attention focused hard until he fixated on the weaving crossed pattern of the covering until he realized he perched in the "sacred seat" No one ever dared sit in this chair, except Bobby. For this to happen, Bobby had to be at the top of worry, which skewered Dean as the world-class schmuck category.

"You're a sneaky bastard, you know that." Dean exclaimed as he narrowed his eyes to slits, glaring at his friend.

"Been known to be."

He didn't intend to be difficult; he just couldn't open the gate to the things waiting to haunt him from the pit. The seepage, the bare minimum that escaped in dreams, clawed at his mind. To open the door would drive him crazy. The superficial images he had shared were horrendous enough. He couldn't bear for Sam to look at him with those eyes, disappointed and understanding. Hell gripped a hold on his heart, so being touchy about it, came naturally. Sighing and regaining calm over his myriad of emotions, he habitually dug a finger at his hairline.

"Thought maybe you had a visit from the special Hell friend network. Might have triggered--"

"Lots of those to pick from. Gotta say the reunion special with Alastair was already more than plenty. So if another if another Citizen Brimstone made a prison break— "Dean replied dumbly, completely belying his intelligence or his pain.

"Think it was one of the faceless?"

"I don't know what that means? "

"You said it."

"I won't forget the faces of hell," Dean said with a shiver that made him appear frozen. "I would know, right?"

"From the nightmare soup we have in past, it's a wonder we are sure of anything," Sam reasoned. "You got to know, I won't let—"

"Maybe it had a right to come after me. I don't know. Had a claim on my head. Not like I don't deserve—"

Sam clenched fury inside his fist so it trapped before it splattered at Dean. Even with the effort, his mouth clenched.

"There's a reason why you're not allowed to stay dead," Sam snapped.

This time, Dean turned at the voice, staring at his brother as if just learned to speak.

"And it ain't--," Bobby continued the thought calmly. "-- all on the account of Lucifer. "

"Much easier to blame the devil," Without missing an opportunity, Dean said. "What do you think? California Raisins as tools of Satan?"

He added the last part so lamely, a proud grin blazing across his face to enforce the horrid joke he peace offered to Sam.

"You're a tool," Sam insisted, "Do you have anything about the creature, what it said, or what you said? Do you know for certain where the dark place—"

"Uh, Hell." Dean paused and sneered at his own ignorance. "Possibly McDonalds. I wish I knew what to tell you. I don't remember much beyond the door. Just dead batteries in my empty flashlight

"As long as you aren't holding back any cared on rhymes, skeletons—

"The Shadow men part gives me the creeps," Sam said.

"Wait, I said shadow man?

"Yeah. Couple of times."

"Huh. That's kinda odd. Sammy, I use to scare you with that."

Sam puzzled, rolling his eyes about the room as if search some deep file in his brain. When he drew a blank, he perched his lips tightly together until they disappeared.

"You know the shadow in the curtain. Ogga- booga."

"Wait, I do sort of remember that. Dude, you told me if I stepped on my shadow, it would eat me! You're a--"

Sam seriously thought of punching Dean, but thought better for now. Later on, he might have to remember to whack him a good one.

"Now, that's a puzzle."

"I got the idea from some pansy Dad knew and just used it on Sam when he got to be a pain in the ass until that one time he cried like a little girl."

"So, you got the name?" Bobby asked.

"No. Some wannabe goober that Dad brought in. He hung a couple of times. Did squat."

"Dad collected some strange ones," Sam reminded, "Won't be easy to narrow down."

"This one wanted to be like Dad's sith or something—"

"Don't recall John training anyone."

"Guy's a total putz. Dad ditched him."

"How far back?"

"Uh, crap. Pretty far. I think."

"Has to be before I broke my arm," Sam said. "I fell out of that tree when my shadow touched the branch."

"That be before you had a clue about our circus. I could come up with a list and match up who hung around before Sam joined the ranks. Think you can describe--."

"Not even if you showed me his family photo album. Guy just – poof- gone. Something about him made me crazy pissed. Don't really remember what."

"There has to be a reason he popped out of your mouth."

"He ain't connected with hell?"

"Could be. Man was shaky if you ask me."

"You had a reason for bringing those memories out of your noggin. Could be a mess of nothing, leading nowhere. But, if it takes knocking a few stones out of the wall of yours, then you're going to do it. "

Dean seemed to cower and swallow apprehension at the suggestion. Even Sam, raising an eyebrow, sympathized. Over the years, Bobby's junkyard had become a halfway house to the brothers, and somehow, just being here made things seem better. However, neither of the boys wanted to be on the receiving end when Bobby demanded something .

Dean peered beyond Bobby, glance out of the curtains as a defensive response. When he dared to open his mouth with a frivolous brush off at the ready, he met the two glowering faces as sobering as the frozen determination of gargoyles.

"I'm going to hate this?"

"Oh yeah." Both replied simultaneously.

"Got anything to say for yourself?" Bobby asked.

"Ding dong. The bad guys dead?" Dean chuckled uneasily.

* * *

**Then…. Rush, Oklahoma. June 199****0****

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**

With a frustrated hand sweep, Dean drew back the flophouse's curtains and fixated on the dark outside the window. The only welcome home came when a street lamp guttered a deadly pale, orange light. In desperation for a better view, he whipped the fabric covering to one side, opened the window, and leaned out like a dog slathering out a car window. His action didn't make his father arrive faster and only garnered little more than a slight mist swathing the neglected panes.

On autopilot, Dean's fingers rolled along the fog covering in juvenile artistic representations; however, what he wrote and drew was less than fitting for a boy his age. The worldliness of his knowledge briefly inflated his ego. Then, just like the life span of his self-compliment, the temperature evened, leaving murky streaks of fingerprints on the glass. Until that point, he hadn't noticed the sticky film that transferred from the cigarette-tarnished curtains.

Dean carefully slapped his hands to his jeans, scrubbing greasy streaks on his knees until his hands felt sandpaper stripped. Just another ache, he figured. One more added to a pile of others with the leader of that pack being a longing to see his father.

"Brave face. Stone face," he mumbled in a reminder.

He knew the right rituals and expectations thrust upon him: the rules that were his alone. Over the years, a slew of army movies, along with John's training, presented enough material to react like a five star general, so he found it particularly annoying to be so eager each time his father came home. After all, he wasn't a child but a hunter. He brought forth images of the legends to quell the solitude.

Once fortified with greats- John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Lee-, Dean screwed on his game face, scooped one leg over the windowsill, straggled on the perch, and peered out into the dusk. He squinted, allowing his eyes to adjust to the lightless world until the shapes morphed into the familiar and obvious. Finally, he completed the tough guy act by stretching out a leg and showing the light switch who made the rules around here. He could just stand his ground and turn it off without getting up. That would show the world how powerful Dean Winchester was.

When the inflated falsehoods popped, everything stilled. In that flash, Dean almost tricked into a belief the world contained the good his mother used to promise. And, maybe there was a bright happiness waiting for him or watching over him. Out of fairness, whoever they were, they should make themselves known soon. Having someone on his side that would never fail him would be nice. From the distant room, only Sam answered with a loud, mule-kicking snore.

"Figures," he bemoaned.

The universe certainly didn't have a clue about him, if that was his answer. Sam's good qualities included bubble popping, toy hoarding, and covering stealing- a short list of Sam's maddening quirks to fray nerves. Better yet, the little bunion had perfected the uncomfortable art of snuggle. Tonight he escaped the vile clutches of the cuddler, but he would trap Dean again soon. Sam had this way of innate cling, unwanted like rash, when they shared a bed. Dean gritted his teeth, mentally carving a mattress with a dividing line. If only his little brother understood battle lines of personal space. The habitual bed struggle officially made the "this bites" list.

Following his silent tirade of little brother woes, Dean beamed at his cleverness until Sam left loose a disturbed grumble.

Dean's posture stiffened as he listened intently, waiting to pounce to Sam's defense. That little guy was his "drive you made, cling-on, know nothing" little brother and everyone best not forget it. He waited until a gentle snore returned before he let his guard drop, not even fathoming how contradictory his thoughts spouted in regards to Sam. He didn't know what to do if he lost the small fry, and he planned to make sure he would never figure that one out.

In that one groan, worry and isolation returned to keep Dean's company. Absently, he dragged a finger in the filmy window sill, scrapping at the stains until "Zeppelin Rules" showed proudly, Pleased, he deemed the promotion of Rock as the best time waster for any occasion.

Tomorrow, the only time he would have would be spent up with plenty of chores- new salt supply, ammo, cleaning guns, holy water- piled on with John's arrival. He even heard a great joke to tell his dad about making holy water by boiling the hell out of it. His father would love that one, if he came home soon enough for Dean to remember to tell it.

Faithfully, he searched for his father's unmistakable frame to cross the dark horizon. Tonight was as good a night as any. From experience, Dean understood his father never followed a planned arrival- maybe today, tomorrow, or next week. Of course, John's coming home. He was sure. He hoped.

Dean drew knees up and rested his chin on them, bending upon his empty belly. A steady groan stabbed inside his gut, begging for a late night munchies raid. Potato chips cravings danced around inside his stomach. As he made a move to leap from his roost to obey his starvation cries, a figure tottered in the distance.

The momentary expectation and hope deflated when the form took on an unfamiliar shape. Whatever came was not his father-- too short and wrong walk. Plus, his Dad never let himself be so open without casing his surroundings.

On alert, he flailed the window shut, zipped the curtain to a slender opening, and crouched under the frame. From a secret space, he fumbled in the dark. His hand knew the way to the gun without a tread of light. In a second, the weapon secured inside his palm and snapped a straight aim upon the window. Pretend time was over. Now, he's badder than all the Hollywood pretenders could ever be and had no problem killing.

The shadow blocked the splatter of the street lamp as Dean cocked the weapon to fire. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, it moved beyond the windows. A quick gust of air expelled Dean's nerves for a blink until the shadow returned and gapped into the curtain slit and the room painted pitch. Even in the complete black, Dean steadied his arm, flexed a finger on the trigger, and locked dead on the figure.

"Wait!" John barked from beyond the door.

The shock of the voice nearly caused Dean to fully depress and fire.

"Don't approach my digs like that unless you want to get dead."

"You got this conspiracy stuff locked up too tightly wound." The shadow responded as something yanked it violent away from the window as if some outside force overtook it. .

"You'll keep your head this way." John said as he knocked a familiar pattern, pushed the darkling through the door and flicked on the lights.

"Whoa! Now that's a gun!" The shadow man offered.

Still kneeling and still holding the gun, Dean peered up at the two figures that had entered the room and lowered the gun.

"He's a friend," John offered his son with a smile and a kicking the door shut. "Good job, tiger. "

"I think I've just met your best kept secret weapon. Quite a boy you have there."

"You can't have him." John chuckled. "He's a hunter, not a boy. Already has 25 kills under his belt."

With pride, John took the weapon, noticing the aim and working order of the gun. In reward, he scuffed Dean's head.

"Don't look at me. More youngins might be the death of me. And, I ain't never stepping in your mess. Got enough trouble with the two head hydra, Ella-Jo. You think two boys are bad, try a woman and girl combo at four in the morning. Now, that gets ugly."

Inspecting the man, Dean realized the stranger as the man who had interrupted that putrid camping trip, and he found he disliked and distrusted the man just as instantly and intently.

"Would have been nice to have you when we cleared out those creepers," the man said as he mocked the tussle on Dean's noggin. "Wouldn't that have been fun?"

Tilting his head away, Dean drew back, eyeing the intruder suspiciously. His brows knitted, sharpening the narrow gaze of his glare.

The man chuckled nervously before he offered, "I see he's got your evil eye."

"Been known to bite too, but mainly when provoked. Dean, beers!"

Obediently, the boy dragged the bottles from the fridge, offering them unhappily, especially to the shadowy one.

"Hey, you should bring him up to this next gig I got on the radar- an icing kill of wraiths. Bet he's better back up than you.

"Nah!" Can't do it, Harv. He'd show you up and make you cry. Got a lot to learn before you're ready—"

"Instruct me, oh wise one!"

"Bullshit! I call bullshit."

Dean stared in disbelief. His father trained another hunter instead of him. All this time away had been devoted to some pupil in the dark side. When his nostrils flared, Dean pinched his lips tight to keep his mouth shut. This had better be a con on a sucker to get cash.

"Come on, what it hurt to pop a few before we get down to the nitty business "

"Uh, Gotta hook up with the usual. Don't have to remind you about the itch to see Missouri. "

"Plenty of time for that. Me and you with a busload of wraith under our belt. What a way to work up an appetite for bigger game."

"Maybe." John relented.

With a mock bow, the man laughed at John.

"Got a lot to do before I hit the road--

"You're leaving again?" Dean asked.

"Just for a while."

With his mouth gaping open and posture slumping, Dean trembled and fumed. This was his time and not some dark man who crept around in shadows to get his head nearly blown off. He did everything right and now he had no chance of being with his father.

"Don't worry I got a list of things for you to do while I'm gone. "

"Yes, sir."

The response sounded gritty, like Dean spitted out with a mouth full of sand, but he really wanted to shoot a breath of fire as the intruder taking his Dad so soon.

Ain't he a crackerjack. Bet your boys never painted a pink pony on your gear?"

"Life's just hard all over for you." John teased.

"And how can I pop a ghost with a glitter on my gun? Disgraced by a--"

"Then you shouldn't be a hunter," Dean grumbled. He didn't like the man when he saw him in the woods and he didn't like him better now. The man should have just stayed out there in the dark shadows where he belonged. Everyone else was always more important.

"Kiddo, you apologize now." John demanded softly with a frozen gaze.

"It's okay. I'm in his space. I get it. Don't worry, son."

"Get bent."

"Dean!" John barked. "Get your can in bed now. And I expect a better attitude when you-"

Dean narrowed on the creeper taking his father away with more venom than a thousand snakes.

"And you and I will have a little talk later on about this." John said in his special code for major trouble.

Gluing to the spot, Dean bore a dagger stare, but unwillingly obeyed the order. Both men ogled him as he defiantly turned and marched with a great stomp to the bedroom. He tucked safely behind the door and if children made vows, he made one at that second to pay back the man someday.

When the boy had gone, John fumed and glared into the distance. The planes on his face sharpened into rigid planes.

"Oh, cut him some slack!"

"Don't know what got into him."

"Try that he's still a kid that wants to hang with his old man. You can't be too hard on that."

"Damn, when did you get so wise Harvelle?"

"Think it was the rolling pin Ellen took to my head. Surprised I'm not brain dead from it," William Harvelle said. "Mark me- when that kids a teen, he won't give two shits to miss you and that sharp tongue of his will cut you god then. Live it up while you can."

"I've taught him better. We respect our own. Pay our debts."

"Hell, Jo's on pigtails going on 30. This life hardens them fast, but we got a chance to soften it for 'em. We both want that, especially when we are this close."

"The timing and signs make sense."

"I can't face this demon alone and we both know what this thing did to our families. "

"We're both in too deep to back out. Hard to think in a coupla weeks Next month that yellow-eye bastard will show for one hellva weenie roast. "

"About time. Until then we pop as many things as we can train a gun on. Whatta say about those wraiths?"  
"Waiting ain't my strong suit."

"Nah, you just like the adrenalin rush."

"Got to do what good I can. Maybe the kids can look up to that one day."

"I think you're already a hero in that boy's eyes. But you can screw up a wet dream."

"Best I keep my hands busy on a gun then.

"Good thing. You'd be downright scary with idle hands."

"Might do the kid good to be on a hunt. I'd say this is a perfect job for a kiddo," Will said. "It's one we can't do without him."


	8. Cookie Monster

**

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Now…Copeland, Missouri.

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**

"Next on MTV cribs, crapholes and why the hell do we always end up in them?! Very nice," Dean said blankly, slumping desolately upon a titled, rickety wooden stair rail. "Got to hand it to you, Bobby, this is a picturesque vacation spot."

Sam flashed a dismissive smile in Bobby's direction. Silently Bobby nodded in agreement and relief, accepting Dean in top form meant an abundance of sarcasm. With a sudden flick, Bobby shined the flashlight in joker's face, illuminating the self-satisfaction that took house upon Dean's features. Yet, bad puns and frivolity were small prices to pay to see Dean healthy.

"If you weren't always getting into trouble, then we could afford to take better trips," Sam said.

"You wound me. Really. Come on, Wally world too much to ask?"

"I live for you to have fun," Sam offered.

"Oh spare me, Sammy, I know your brand of family fun. Tomorrow you'll probably kill the desk clerk, hold up a McDonalds, and drive us 1000 miles out of the way to see the world's largest pile of mud!"

"Now you know why I hide the remote."

"If Griswold there could cut the crap for a bit," Bobby said as he gave Dean a sudden nudge. "We might get somethin' accomplished."

Turning his own flashlight to scan the horror cliché structure, Dean inspected it with a cautious eyebrow. The paltry strength of the flashlight did little to enhance the ramshackle skeleton of the three-story inn. In Dean's opinion, if creepy music played and lightening flashed behind the place, it could be the makings of a great slasher flick. After all, an abandoned, ill repair inn, just off a cobbled road that perched on a steep, barren hill was practically an invitation for Rob Zombie to direct. Dean's stare wandered up the brick and classic ironwork around each delicate window until his light fell on a painted sign announced proudly: Crumbpecker's Inn.

Eyeing the faded sign, Dean curled a corner of his mouth and spoke out of the upturned corner. "Crumbpeckers?" he offered wryly. "That sounds all kinds of wrong. Crumbpeckers? Dude, I'm overqualified to be here." Dean beamed a brilliant smile as he jumped the next two wooden steps in a single leap.

"How many hours a day do you practice stupid?" Bobby asked as he gave Dean a quick shove up the next step.

"24. He just has natural talent." Sam said, following behind them.

"Hate to admit that Terry's got a strange sense of humor. I suspect he and Dean will be Dumb and Dumber," Bobby said.

"I thought you said this guy was totally hermit crackers!" Dean offered.

"Nuts aside. His research methods make Rufus look like bush league. Got the most complete collection of occult research the world over. Kinda makes up for the bonkers part of him, if he doesn't blast a hole in you first."

"That's why we have spokes model Dean along. My brother speaks fluent fruitcake."

Beginning a mocking babble, Dean could only have topped the sound by sticking out a wagging tongue. Instead, jumping with gusto, he skipped the next two steps and whipped up the last with a swing off the rail.

"Can't take you anywhere." Bobby suggested as they caught up to the boisterous Dean.

With a hard wallop, Bobby pounded the heavy door with his boots, knocking forcefully. The cracks sounded thunderous.

"Ter! It's Bobby. Need your help."

When a long moment of silence passed, Dean tapped his fingers on the doorframe. "How long since you last saw this guy.?

"When were you last in diapers?"

"Uh… Sam was in those… uh… last week."

"Ha-ha. Riot!" Sam said. "If this guy makes Rufus look the poster boy of mental health. We may want to back off."

"Terry! I got a case for you. Got a creature damn near seems like it burned in hellfire. Tell me you can pass that up?" Bobby waited a few moments, giving the man time to respond before he spoke again. "You know it ain't like me to get clueless about creepy crawlers--"

"Screw this." Dean bellowed.

He fumbled in his front pocket, scraping his fingers over his pocketknife until he dug deep enough to snatch out his wallet. In a few seconds, he yanked a credit card, crammed the wallet back in placed, jutted the plastic square into the crack of the door, and started jiggling it. Several tugs later, a click sounded when the lock gave away to pressure.

"I love old locks. Too damn easy." Dean continued as he turned to grin triumphantly at his companions.

When nothing made a sound or happened, in particular no gunfire, Bobby straightened. He leaned against the door, pushing it in slowly so the door screamed ominously at their arrival.

"So far so good." Bobby gave the boys quick nod to stay behind him. "Terry! "

Dean took a step around Bobby as he boldly strutted in the room with just his flashlight. "Hello. Honey, we're home!"

Again, no one answered other than the riddled flooring under the pressure of his boot. He lunged over a gaping break in the floorboards, avoiding a pitfall to the basement below. A step beyond the opening, the plank snapped under his weight to open the chasm further.

His right leg dropped, sinking before he could utter a sound. Yet, his body scrambled, clawing for a grip while his left knee bent to support him from falling to the basement below. His sunken leg flayed and dangled in air like a fish searching for water with none in sight.

Sam skidded to his belly, scrambling urgently, testing the flooring under his weight until he grabbed both of Dean's arms and pulled. Using his anchored leg as a fulcrum, Dean bounded from the jagged wood break into a supported piece of the floor. Palms down, Dean pushed up from the floor, checking the tenderness of his right knee. He permitted a grimace, quick and pointed, to cross his face before he feigned no sign of pain.

"You alright?" Sam said, pushing himself off the floor into a stand.

"Fine." Dean said in blunt annoyance.

"Something still eatin' at ya?"

"Yeah, the floor."

Denying any more questions, Dean cracked each leg in turn, realigning any muscles or bones to say nothing could ever be wrong. Truthfully, he still felt strange and disconnected in a universal joke that had a missing punch line. A few weeks of research forced them in this deathtrap to attempt to label the thing that attacked. If that wasn't enough, he despised the looks from Sam and Bobby- the looks at a broken toy.

As Dean he searched for the right words to defuse the fumble, Bobby switched a massive switch on a fuse box near the door. Electric crackled and cased a soft light upon the hard edges and moodiness of the surroundings. The large, airy reservation area extended all three floors and showcased infinitely endless passageways of unwelcoming bookshelves stretching out leading into bedrooms brimming with more books.

Disgust soaked inside Dean as he confronted the perpetual arch nemesis: Research. He'd never cared for school-- or reading-- or homework. If given a choice, he preferred action: the school of hard knocks—the surer path to victory. Plenty of scars provided him reminders of that education. In addition, letting Sam be the smart one was definitely easier. Dean had the mind for the logic, but not the stomach to take on the drudgery of hours of mind numbing, useless information. This time, he doubted Sam or Bobby would let him have a hall pass to skip study hall.

"So, this friend of yours—you think he can lay your doubts to rest about-"

"Probably easily, but oddly he ain't in. He does wander off from time to time. Usually sets a crap load of booby traps when he does. "

"I like boobies."

"Maybe the demon activity lately set him off his sorts," Sam offered, ignoring Dean. "If he's the jumpy type—hell, I would hide out if we had a choice."

A dancing finger shifted over several titles, collecting dust along the way. Finally, Dean flicked the matted dirt in the air letting the mass float down into the floor hole to the basement. "Ya ask me, I think mutant dust bunny foo-foos ate him?" Dean said, wiping the last of the residue on his jeans. "This collection, alone, disturbs me. It's like Sam's wet dream."

"Yeah?" Bobby nodded, tossing Dean a carefully selected book. "And don't just look at the nice pictures, kiddo."

"Couldn't I just do a beer run?"

"Uh, no," said Bobby. "Get you a spot to hunker down and get at it."

Glancing about, Dean sought refuge on the main staircase leading to all three levels. Scooting halfway up the first level, he flicked a few pages, glancing at the task before him. For the briefest of moments, he shifted to test the soundness of the stair structure, thinking a few MGM musicals must have taken place on these steps. That idea made him want to purge even more than settling in with a good, and surely disturbing, book.

"You got the shun on you?" Sam asked, looking worriedly from below.

"Hey, you want to trampoline on the wormwood floor, go ahead. I'm fine right here. You're supposed to be the bright one! Dumber than advertised."

"Yeah, every time you speak I lose 3 brain cells."

"Be the first meaningful conversation you two fools you ever had. Either of ya find even a small lead, you holler."

"Yeah, yeah. I got it. No stone unturned bunk," Dean said and slipped into a mutter as he turned a discolored page. "No book unburned would be better."

**

* * *

**

**Then… Ellsberg, Illinois- July 1990**

**

* * *

  
**

Slapping shoe leather skidded on the hot cement as Dean, Harvelle, and John cased the next blocks of busy tourist style shops.

"Can't say it makes much sense. Over the past 20 years, wraith sightings in this area have been off the charts all over this section of town," Will said.

"They heard you were coming," John managed to say with a slight chuckle. "So, Sherlock how sure are you about the intell now?"

"You would like to see me fail, wouldn't you?"

"Might take away some smugness. "

"Oh no! Wife wouldn't know me if I lost that. How about you, kid? You sure you haven't seen anything?"

"I know my job."

John chuckled harder, and for the briefest second his humor keeps him from reigning in Dean's attitude.

"If dark comes before we find the lair, they will be harder—"

"I know!" Dean barked, instantly informing the wannabee that he knew how to hunt. "Wraiths are corporal at night and in the day, they are harmless—killable- phantoms. Since most wraiths are confused children, the young can see them. I know what to look for I'm not the blooming' idiot in this group!"

For all his smart mouth, soapbox platitudes, Dean's awareness keenly focused on the impending sunset. Hunting things with arms and limbs that smacked you back didn't making the job a carnival. If a flock of schoolyard wraith hung around here, they hid deep, which contradicted wraith behavior 101.

"We'll hit the shops a block over. One more and we call it quits, champ."

The idea of another round of hide and go seek in novelty shops and mom and pops almost made Dean weak in the knees. So far, the only thing he discovered was how annoying crowds could be- the nature of civilians. He seriously thought of begging to go to the library for research just to get off his feet. All these small card shops, drug stores, shoes stores, and other craptacular hellholes laid out like a smorgasbord horror movie playground, and, depending on the turf, a variety of sickos crawled about in the woodwork. That, at least, would have been normal for him. This niceness- slice of American pie commercialism- nauseated him. If something haunted these streets and felt out of place, Dean couldn't find it. Then again, the cheery happiness and the tag-along hunter were grossly out of place.

"Kid," Harvelle instructed, "Try acting candy land innocent to see-"

"Are you coo-coo for coco puffs? What do you think I've been doing! I bet you couldn't find your ass in the dark with both hands, a flashlight, and a map!"

"Nice kid," Harvelle said. "Got the Winchester charm in scoops of spades."

"Don't play in my sandbox, if you don't like it." Dean smirked at his cleverness.

"Dean." John said calmly with no twinge of inflection.

"Sir."

"Stop being like Caleb. His mouth isn't a thing to copy."

Swallowing hard, Dean gorged back his pride.

"And-"

"Sir?"

"One more block."

"Yes sir. No stone unturned. I got it."

**

* * *

**

**Now…Copeland, Missouri**

**

* * *

  
**

Green orbs overcast with a dryness as they passed over another unhelpful paragraph. With each page, Dean fixated on piecing the desperate nightmare into hard facts, hell even loose facts. Several times, he readjusted his position, scooting into a corner of the stairs, watching Sam and Bobby struggle with useless facts. From their postures, he knew they were just as empty handed.

He dejectedly closed the book and tossed it at his side. With a deep sigh, he rested his head on his knees letting the crawling cockroaches off his mind slither about in morsels of memories. For a man of action, he grew unusually still, maybe attempting meditation of sorts. When nothing popped from the deep crevices of his mind, he glanced back to the main floor, wondering how long Bobby and Sam would gnaw at the bones of this mystery.

Most days, family was all the reassurance he needed, yet right now, he craved openness. For the life of him, the very walls breathed and closed in around him, closing off his senses. And, he couldn't shake the world-class dolt feeling that he should remember something important. Rushed by his own self-doubts, he wandered up the staircase, passing the second level.

Just as he reached the third, he felt the hot sensation of watchful eyes bore upon him. He didn't need to look back to know Bobby and Sam, breaking from the tedious reading, were the bloodhounds to his escape. He paused briefly, waiting for some form of protest until the room held breath in expectation too. The expected words never came. Dean turned, half-cautious with some unknown worry, but received a nod of approval before each man went back to dusty tomes. With permission somehow granted, he sulked up the last flight until he was out of sight of the main room.

Waiting until the footfalls fell to silence, Bobby tossed a leather bound journal aside and shoved several selections upon the table. "Cat on a hot tin roof that one."

"He's acting caged still. He just can't seem to shake it," Sam said. "I know he's trying to work it all out, but-"

"I know. He wants it all to be right- or the way he thinks the world should be- got to be killing him to cork all that inside."

"He may not believe me, but I'm going to find a way to make the world as he sees it. Guess I owe him—and everyone else in this world."

"Stop it. Ain't no sense of that crap. We all know something's not right with this attack. Best we find out what."

*********

Mindlessly, Dean stepped onto the roof, testing a leg gingerly for a sound footing. He didn't suffer to be a fool again and fall through a roof. When his foot found solid ground, he squinted to see where his next step would lead him to find black surrounding him. Distantly, he smacked himself for not bringing a flashlight, but he really should only be away for a few minutes. He took a deep breath of the cold air, imagining the unseen fog might be spilling from his mouth. He puffed out, like smoking an imaginary cigarette, thinking of the time John caught him with the first, and last, smoke.

The wind responded with an exhale of wind on his face that ruffled the starburst of his hair. Enjoying the moment, his intense eyes fell shut and closed every door of his mind with it. The forceful search of vague recollections ceased. For this instance, he didn't plot to connect thoughts. What was the point really? Unfortunately, the path his mind took looked as if a drunk planned a trip with a blindfold.

Suddenly, a soft coo sprang out of the darkness. Without hesitation, Dean, fully alert, searched his surroundings with sharp skill. The opening of his eyes and focus narrowed the world grey to him. Now, his eyes saw newly the shapes and crags in the night, splashed by a perched sliver of a crescent moon. The pale blue light gave life to shapes before him. The flatness of the roof, save for a square of space and several smokestack style chimneys. Beyond the roof, the road, empty of life, stretched a scar into the horizon of brooding trees.

More at ease, he paced to the boxed center of the roof, noticing a raised box of bricks. As he perched upon the stonework, Dean felt his hand shift in slick ooze, which coated a forgotten skylight. The panes, obscured by years of decaying leaves and mold, opened a canvas. Then something snapped in his mind so clearly, he chuckled. His finger took over, driven by deviousness until the phrases "Zeppelin Rules" and "Sam sucks" cleared spots upon the glass.

In the newly cleaned letters, Dean spied Bobby and Sam hard at work on the first floor. With the new view, the desire to drop his pants and moon them nagged at him, but even he couldn't go that far. Though funny, there was an over share line with brothers. Still this opportunity shouldn't be a total waste. If he thought of something non-disturbing to his nature, Sam would pay.

After he chuckled, he thought hard until a voice slapped his mind.

"Our precious stolen one."

At first, Dean dismissed the thought of the clear words. The intruded into his head so easily, his apprehension exploded into a blaze of pure survival panic. Even the mundane ordinariness of this place sparked a rattle in his brain, letting his breath quickened. No enemies emerged, but Dean long since learned that meant nothing. The hairs on his neck alarmed, standing straight in attention. He wasn't alone.

"Brother Bone."

"No," Dean squeaked, pushing at the instant quake in his gut. His eyes snapped open, knowing hidden dangers surrounded him. He suppressed their entrance, waiting for foes to emerge, as he attempted to rush from the skylight and bound down the stairs. Out of sheer will, he stood, but his legs froze in place.

From behind the rooftop sign, several shadowed figures appeared. Each of the faces basked with burned ridges and suctioned hollow eyes. The shadows culled into the figures of two men and a woman as if darkness itself could take human form upon will, the dark dancers pulling him into a dark, deadly waltz.

"Our brother bone coming home." she said.

An inarticulate gurgle wrung involuntarily from Dean. His legs trembled and hunched him over in anticipation of attack, but the female thing caressed his cheek as he could only react with a slight flinch.

"My sweet one."

When she touched Dean again, he shocked at a cold spot on his chest- a silver emblem necklace lassoed around his neck. Instantly, his eyes gravitated towards the branded symbol the dark thing awarded him: a fierce bird atop a twisted tree.

"His birthright." A male voice muttered with satisfaction and relief.

No matter how Dean wanted to scream, his jaws locked into whispering protest mutters. His hands trembled with reaction to the creatures' voice, losing all sense of coordination. The more the mewling, demented monkey faced creatures spoke, the more his head swam and numbed. A fist full of dreaded memories skittered into his eyes as if they had always been a movie waiting to smear and erode at his very soul. The maddening itch stole will and crept throughout his bloodstream.

"My love has forgotten me?" she asked.

The undertone of incomprehensible words slammed against Dean's ears until he faltered at her sickly sweet vibe like shattered glass darkness consuming him forever.


	9. Gingerbread

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**_Author's note: I am posting as I get pieces finished. Hopefully, I haven't put off anyone with the vague clues. I think this is the most complex horror mystery I've tried. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more tomorrow. _**

* * *

**

**Then… Ellsberg, Illinois - July 1990**

* * *

The persistent twist of hunger in Dean's gut rejoiced as the boy stepped the first tiptoe inside Grandma Annie's Bakery. Overhead a bell chimed a warning signal that all forms of pastries should operate battle stations. The ache for food quickly overpowered the tedious nature of the hunt as he imagined the sugar exploding inside his mouth. With a single glance, his vocal and empty void begged for every sweet concoction within sight. If the glass cases didn't protect the morsels, his stomach would have gone franken-belly on him and gorged on the whole lot. And, Dean might have helped a bit by cramming as much as he could in his pie hole.

Unfortunately, he had to remind himself and his belly of the task at hand. Wherever the great hunter pretender got his 411, Dean began to wonder if it came from the roost of all evil rumors—that the Beatles sang backwards to Satan, potted meat was made from people, and that Chuck Norris dreamed of being a Rockette. Of course, that would be Amway, or maybe Avon. Dean never told that joke right, but either seemed to be amusing

Chow aside, he centered his attention on signs of wraith, and upon finding nothing, his face plastered upon the first glass case, fogging it with desire and wondering what baklava tasted like and what made Turkish delight so Turkish .

"Rrrrrhhhghghhghhghhtttt." His stomach screamed, loosely translated as feed me.

"Can I help you?" the annoyed, teen store clerk asked, obviously waiting for the last of her job sentence to end.

"Two, please," Dean asked expectantly, eyeing chocolate chip cookies as large as baseballs. One of those suckers alone assured hero worship from Sammy for at least a week. In that small way, the trip wouldn't been a total loss. An obedient Sam was a happy Dean. His little brother had just better realize how generous this treat was under aching feet circumstances.

"Chocolate or oatmeal?"

His face fell in a stupefied expression at the absurdity of the question. "Chocolate, Pam," he said reading the pink nametag on her t-shirt.

"Whatever, kid," she mumbled as she crammed cookies into a white paper bag and rolled the top down with her neon polished, gnawed nails, which scrambling like a spider. "Don't guess you can pay for it?"

"Allow me," a kind male voice offered from behind him.

Whipping around, Dean stared up at sculptured perfection of a couple so striking that he felt a baffling unease. He realized hunger took over for a moment, but he didn't even hear the door chime.

"It's okay. We love children." The woman offered in a voice as lilt as porcelain. "Please give him whatever his heart desires."

"No, thanks. Two's plenty. I got to motor any—"

"Oh no. You must stay." The man stared at Dean expectantly.

"Uh, sure. I'll just look around--" the boy scoffed in disbelief.

The duo stared at him with eyes, exploding universes of light falling into a hollowed vacuum pupil. The young woman extending a hand, playing with a tuff of hair at the nape of Dean's neck and the man shoved money in the cashier's direction.

"Are you alone? I would not let a child of mine wander so."

"I'm not. Dad's waiting outside," Dean said, not offering that Dad and the faker were up the street in wait of a signal. "I got this covered and thanks." Shoving the cash back towards the stranger and stuffing his cookies in a wad deep inside his duffel bag, he wanted to get away from the pretty freakazoids.

With his focus screwed to the adults, he punched the cookies into crumbles at the bottom of the bag. Retracting, his finger grazed the matchstick home, embedding a splinter inside his forefinger. "Arg." He would have to get rid of that monstrosity as soon as Sam forgot about it. Moving with urgency, Dean sucked at the pink shard inside his fingertip, cursing under his breath.

"Do you need help?' the elegant woman asked, leaning forward until a hedge row of blond curls shone like gold in the overhead light. Before Dean could protest, she poked at the slip of wood inside his forefinger. "The poor dear. Now this won't do."

"My heart bleeds," the cashier said, filing her nails and staring off into a tiny TV screen behind the counter. "I close in five. Got it. Kid wants something else that's the time you got to get it."

"Don't trouble yourself," the man suggested calmly. "We're only here for some sweet morsels."

"S-sure," Pamela stared blankly at the pair, face drawn down and empty.

"You like that don't you dear?" the man asked. "We take good care of our children."

The cashier froze, giving a stare of the undead, not showing any attitude as before.

Splitting his focus between the pair and the sudden Stepford checkout chic, Dean labeled them the oddest civilians ever. He rolled a disdained eye at the grouping, pulling his hand away from the woman's grasp. Shoving his duffel over his shoulder with conviction, he glanced back at the confections one last time. He may have wished for more money to waste on the goodies, but even he knew not to accept gifts from strangers.

The continent of sweets mapped out pure heaven and this time something else. Strange eyes reflected in the glass- the wraith, grinning and pointing at him. Two clung to the man's pant legs, scrambling about him as if on a tether. Another, a small delicate girl, reflected near the woman's side. That wraith blushed as she hovered on tiptoes, watching curiously over Dean's shoulder with wonder.

The sudden rush of discovery swamped him with a dolt smack. They had been searching the wrong places, more aptly searching in just places. These people, whoever they were, anchored the wraith to them. Adrenaline invaded his system, gushing his movement as he tried to disguise his intentions. If he stepped out the door and signaled a single nod, John would storm the place and end this right now. Carefully, he backed away as his body shown with casualness he didn't feel.

"Run, run as fast as you can?" the man sang in a joyous sound.

Stepping back, he glared at the dark incarnation. Without will, he turned to face the couple. The crux of his panic suppressed his mind to inert, which spread throughout, sluggishly assaulting his veins with murderous cruelty. For a brief moment, Dean thought iron pumped through him and not blood. His stomach pounded as it seemed to collapse into his shoes. The deeply sick wave slammed as the strangers moved to encase his mind with shadow- a veil shutting out all things.

The duo shifted, waiving rhythmic beat alongside the bone-chilling sound of their voices. wind. As the man stirred, the woman parroted the exact opposite. Whatever the pair were doing, it roused the wraith to a mewling concert, shaking the souls of the dead and quaking the floor underfoot. Yet, only Dean's legs shook and not the world.

"Please come home, little one."

"Sweet home for a sweet son." Simply, the shadow- the dark temptress- spoke to him, as it had to so many other children before him. "He could be the favored." The woman whimpered, running a finger over Dean's shoulder.

"Our favored son," the man replied.

She bent close to Dean's ear, humming words in a soft song before she grasped the injured finger, plucked the splinter out, and surrounded the finger with her lips. When she released the digit, the smallest trickle of blood splattered to the floor.

"So sweet."

"Tell me," the male said so quietly with a voice that could have turned the earth itself to stone. "The young always think they are owed the world. Never thinking anything other than the fame and treats they are due. To live young and never grow old. Would you like all those wishes to be yours?"

"A suckling babe to our fold."

Ignoring the petty torture of his slow mind, Dean's instincts begged to get inside the duffel and search for a gun he tucked away for emergencies. His powerless sixth sense could only open his mouth in a soundless scream as his face infected with a lethargic blankness. A part of him dimly annoyed at this, but mainly he simply welcomed their words. The glue trap of his mind stuck each murmur ants until no room remained for his own thoughts. They spoke another word and then Dean felt, thought, and knew nothing. Falling into their call, he sucked into the shadowed void without awareness, going blank mind numb and collapsing into the woman's awaiting arms.


	10. Claim Jumper

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* * *

Then… Ellsberg, Illinois - July 1990**

* * *

Migrating the corkscrew of consciousness, Dean teetered on a vague awareness, particularly of scent. The malodorous hybrid of cotton candy and rot teased his senses with the promise of death. His eyes flicked, trying to corral reality, instead his thoughts wobbled.

Fixating, he pushed hard for a single memory or action that he could claim as his own. The most he managed spilled into "Get out! Run!" Somewhere in the befuddled chaos of his mind, he still knew survival was the better part of valor. Yet, his legs twitched, stalled as if they were concrete columns. For his useless effort, the smidgen of a shift jabbed shards of rubble, jagged as peddles or glass digging into the back portion of his body. Knowing he should move, yet powerless to do so, Dean whimpered in a low, shockingly childlike keen.

A pitch of his gut and a quake in his body nail him down as much hold him down as much as the hazy in his head. Down with a sickness, his noggin paddled with no recollection of where or how he had been taken; however, he sensed danger, piping hot, all around him. That alone should have rattled his psyche free, but nothing cracked the power the creature held. So, his muscles and mind settled as that one last hooray of thought dwindled.

Froze, like a snapshot, he sank into something thickset as jelly, coating him in uncontrollable chill and a putrid liquid, which saturated him as profusely as his addled brain. The sanguine fluid reeked of the strange honey odor, scrapping into his nostril and grabbing each hair until he involuntary wanted to gag. When the pungent crescendoed, one lazy green eye forced open, followed by the bemoaning crack of the other.

For once in his life, Dean might have been grateful for ignorance perception. In full view, in all ghastly an atrocious gore, little faces flashing perfect permanent smiles surrounded him. The pale bones welcomed him in their numbers as the blackened skeleton eye sockets returned vacancy of Dean's sight.

Skulls, blood, bone- he glued between the skeletons and nowhere. Empty stained bones, former homes to the multitude of wraith that just began to swirl as Dean's eyes opened. Round and round, they spun, diving inside what they use to be, gawking at a new brother to the masses. The faceless ones stacked in mounds of unspeakable remains- some still fleshy and rotting.

Amid the farrago of wraiths, shadows, and bones, Dean roosted on the top of the cesspit like the newly crowned king of the heap. Body upon body. Waste upon waste. Decay upon decay. Dean all on top, waiting his turn in line until some creature called him to join in the death parade.

Even the sight of a mass grave did little to fuel the need- the will- the strength to fight. At best, Dean gurgled an objection and chucked a hand into the puddled blood until skeletons toppled, sinking him further in the bone yard. He blinked dopily, glancing at the scarlet blood glistening on the graveyard tan pallor of his hand as a wiggling maggot dropped from the crack of his fingers. "Already dead." Dean sputtered on autopilot. The words sounded more like struggling air than thought.

"Not yet, little friend" a male voice taunted, deeper and different from the man from the bakery. "And all my friends are skeletons."

The man, Theron, juggled something inside his fingers and sucked happily on his teeth while the woman from the bakery, Nysa, moved to block the man's path to the bony cesspool.

"No more," Nysa murmured. Somehow, she found new strength as she spoke. "You will give him back!"

"Such a fine—crumb— to join the clan," Theron said as he grabbed her arm, forcing her to look at Dean. "You know the pain. The hunger. The guilt. Spare yourself this maddened cycle—"

"He will be my child. He is mine child." Nysa demanded, yanking herself free.

"Sister, I know you better than—"

"When Avel returns—"

"Blather. My kin!" he called out to the nooks of the abandoned factory. "We all want just a taste, a tiny-"

Shoving her brother away, Nysa glared at the moving shadows that began to wail like a five alarm 's head flopped as numerous voices quarreled like rabid, starving beasts. Suddenly the churning wraith swooped and swooned to the speaking man, the tallest of the group. Equally mesmerizing as the pair from the bakery, he carried some position of power among the things. Appearing to agree, the children apparitions coddled in throngs around the man. Each pawing him in a fearful pamper, while he ignored the preening. His bull's eye squared only on the need of a fresh kill.

In a spur, he tossed Nysa to the side, as more shadowed ones held her at bay. Free to exact intent upon the helpless. Soon the boy would be just another unfulfilled life anchored to the ones who reigned over permanent shadow. In the swarm of activity, the thing, bloodlust pumping, shifted towards the young man. As he shifted, unblocking view of mixing machine that sparked alive with humming lights. The weak beam struggled to spread in the expanse and escape the corrugated and rusting metal walls. The short extending ray only managed to cast a ghostly glow over what had once been a thriving creamery. Now, instead of serving tasty treats, it served as a dumping ground and sanctuary to these dark ones.

Then, all of a sudden, Theron stopped. For a while, he just stared at Dean, scrutinizing the rise and fall of the boy's chest and glaring back at Nysa. Smiling, the monster licked each tooth in turn and sucked upon them. Finally, he shoved the item he had juggled in between an incisor until the sharp metallic pin freed a meaty morsel. Satisfied, he hurled Pamela's nametag into the muck.

"I didn't really need a souvenir, not when there's-"

"Not this time. He is perfect-"

Within a second, just as abruptly as the stop, Theron lunged with a boisterous leap, spattering into the crimson bog. Bits of bloody juice and bones dispersed and scattered into the air. The thick, sickly gobs plashed Dean. With an impulsive wrench, he dislodged Dean, dangling a single leg from his hand. Blood dripped from the boy in gory and humorless detail.

"Brother Bone," the man said. The last note dropped low and melancholy like the howl of a wolf that has lost its pack. Several replies came from the others, who were feral, but just as mesmerizingly beautiful. Inhaling deeply, the man sniffed Dean over like a tasty confection. "This one has been touched by the dark before and yet still so mouth-watering and innocent. Rare, indeed. Seconds, you think?"

The black clad man hoisted Dean over the mixing pot, which filled to the brim with cloudy oil and bit of floating remains.

"Once I caught a little fish,  
Such a sweet tasty dish.  
And which finger shall I bite

Perhaps the little finger on the right."

From the dark, more things began to creepy around the pot, waiting for Dean to be plopped in endless vat of oil. Dragging Nysa with them, they droned in throngs. The craving inside her grew epic as she denied her carnal appetite.

"It's still hot from the last batch," the man said.

"Not this one." Nysa commanded, breaking free of the breather. She desperately grasped to lock arms about Dean. "Give me my beloved."

"Give him back!" said Avel, the man from the bakery. The interrupter matched stares with larger man, daring to challenge battle as he shoved Theron and Dean from the communal soup pot. "Return our child."

"Ah, the ever champion returns to watch over the new one—just like all the others!" Theron said

By this point, Nysa grasped Dean from her brother's grasp, sweeping the wilted boy in her arms "Not this one. He is special." She cradles Dean.

Protests of malnourished wails erupted from the dark rabble. Raising a hand, the leader quelled the wraith and the fellow shadow brethren. "No fear. It will end as it always has. He will not restore the house. You will see."

"He's mine forever."

"He's yours- for now."

Amid his platitudes, Theron, picked up a large paddle and stirred inside the pot. Poking and jabbing, he slung a partial deep fried corpse over the side, allowing the carcass to crack into the bone yard. The grand master motioned for them to rise, and the creatures did. After the offering into the bloody pantry, the horde of beautiful, black things circled it. Some pawed at Dean as they passed, snagging at the boy's skin and hair. None defied Nysa's protection or doubted the temporary nature of it.

While the multitude scrambled and sloppily crunched at the last of tonight's menu, Nysa and Avel encased Dean in an embrace.

"Don't blame me if you need a little snack later, sister."

The insanely delicate and beautiful creatures stripped flesh from tender pink bones and didn't stop the gorge until the last morsel of boney goodness slithered into their vapid mouths. Afterward, one by one, they disbanded. The last of the females chomped a thin arm bone, dragging herself and the corpsey treat with her to a dark corner.

Left alone, the trio lingered. Embraced by wretched Nysa, the inert Dean Snuggly nestled into the lap of a dangerous enemy. "We won't fail this time?"

"Never again," Avel promised for the countless time.

_She slowly hummed and began to sign softly, "Aide, aíde, kimísou, kórí mou__"_

For an unfathomable reason, the sweet voice rallied Dean to buck his right leg gingerly. Instantly, she intensified her grip and song.

_K'eghó k'eghó ná soú kharíso tín_  
_Alexandra zákhari_"

The melody thickly clogged in his brain until none of his limbs wanted to be anywhere but her arms. As the song grew louder, all thoughts began to blur into recession. Numbing warmth tingled to the tips of his fingers and toes. _Nuzzling Dean to her as a cloak of protection, a feral tongued darted out before she bit her lip to quell the hunger pains trembling inside her. Avel, absently, maneuvered a lock of Nysa's hair behind her ear as he bent closer to her involuntary child._ When he became completely malleable, Avel placed a tarnished silver coat of arms about Dean's neck.

_"Ké to ké tó Misí ri rí zi_  
_Ke tín Konstantantinoúpoli_  
_Trís khrónous ná tín rízis"_

Pouted lips locked on Dean, kissing him lightly as she rocked- her touch of confusion, acceptance, and abandonment. Her soothing presence was nothing more than a short promise and denial of truth- a promise born to be broken.


	11. Down Will Come Baby

**

* * *

Now… Copeland, Missouri**

* * *

"Back off!" Dean demanded, anemic and breathy, instead of speaking with the intended gusto.

"We searched long," the aphotic female said.

The voice's dank vibe shrieked of past secrets to Dean, who chased the camouflaged wisps of memory about in an unconnected mind. As he struggled at the edges of submission, images flashed before him of bone, skulls, shadows, and blood, mixing with the grotesque view of the burned woman before him. Just as before, the horrors of hell dragged, trying to intermix. "Not now, "he mouthed vaporously.

"Hush. Time to come home."

Barren of self-answers of who this creature was, what it was, and what she wanted from him, Dean's fruitless efforts allowed an infusion of her pain all the way to his capillaries, which pumped as thick and clogged as his thoughts. Just as obvious, he knew the jeopardy, but lacked sense enough to devise a method of attack. On the precipice of memory, the answers wedged deep in his cavernous nothing of understanding.

With an acquainted curiosity, Nysa jolted closer, intimately crowding until the disfigured mouth breathed a hot, dewy breath upon his neck. As she moved, the slick and smelted skin on her massively destroyed face brushed along his collarbone. Her disproportionate nostrils scoured in his anxious scent. She caressed the tips of his ears with feline affection, raking at the impulse reaction of his nerves until she grabbed Dean's lips in hers, biting down hard as much as kissing him. When she finally released, the broken bit of flesh served up a trickling smatter of blood along his lip edge to his chin. Excitedly, she brought a scarred, elongated finger to his lips, polished away the scarlet line, and then she plunged her dexterous tongue upon the blood offering.

"Stop." Dean pressured the single word from his voice box as if it burned his lungs to produce enough air for the sound. He sputtered nonsensical commands as he glanced about, searching the structure and even the winding road for escape or rescue. He looked left, right, above, and below only to find darkness.

"I've missed you," Nysa said, while her red stained finger stroked at the spikes of his hair. "Time to go home, sweet boy."

As if his mind took a cumulative stagnant sigh, Dean careened, buckling to hold his ground, even as the back of his knees dipped against the brick casing of the skylight. Nowhere to Go. Nowhere to Run.

"I've long watched," Nysa said,

And she had been. Soon as the first kin, the messenger, failed, it became evident that more than one kin would be necessary to ensure Dean's return. She waited, hungered for the time to show herself and take her selected son again. When Theron tracked her runaway after all these years, she sparked with the idea of reunion. The countless hours stabbed at her as Dean lingered under the meddling eyes of the two guardians, the ones he called family with such ease. All the while, the scattered horde collected to former glory. The numbers may have dwindled from the years in sewers and starvation, but none would overpower this weakened household.

She couldn't quell her excitement any longer, emerging sooner than planned. Even as her chosen's suspicious rose to an all time high on the rooftop, she watched. The strange new angularity to his body, that hadn't been there the last time, made her curious, yet she still recognized the flare she loved long ago in the boy. Nysa amazed that Dean remained as worthy as before, even with a new treasury of sins added to his soul.

"I've long waited for you to know our bond and the damage you've done."

"We've waited," Theron corrected, the disembodied voice rumbling from the pitch.

"Yes, we've waited," she said, tinkling fingers on the nape of his neck.

Under her caressing inspection, the hair soldiers on Dean's neck stood at attention, sensing they were behind enemy lines. Not a part of his body left unsquirmed by her presence. She watched him. She touched him. She controlled him. She unglued him. Even now, her constant focus bore solely upon him, but she's not the only one staring. Every eye, a sea of watchers, narrowed in for the moment of the ritual feasting and vengeance.

Acting on nature, the darkness approached, devouring every spark of hope. It stirred formless and undefined before bulging oddly, molding into vague outlines of more disfigured parodies of humans. The churning solidified and coalesced into the kinship army. The dark dancers lamented a mind-crippling death knell song, spouting broken promises until pillars of their ranks, intensely black, formed a collapsing trap about Nysa and Dean.

In the safety of net, Nysa softly sang, as Dean pendulated exhaustedly. _"Aíde, aíde, kimísou, kórí mou_. _K'eghó k'eghó ná soú kharíso tín."_ Tired years of seclusion seasoned the sweet lullaby she crooned into her son's ear. Safely away from the two watcher's prying eyes and with numbers to ensure victory, she claimed Dean into his rightful status of the clan. To be with him once again panged a fathomless thirst, foremost and insistent, and then _hunger_ gnawed little burrowed reminders in her stomach.

"Claim him now!" Theron demanded, from the horde. "Claim him and avenge Avel."

Then a shred of rational thought singled all of Dean's efforts. He rallied, barricading the smear and erode by trying to construct an indestructible regime about his mind. The brief atom of effort peaked the melodic sickness harder upon him. It punched into his features, making him even paler. He writhed to break free of her verbal bonds even as every word ripped a callous hold on his freewill.

"Get out of my head!" he muttered weakly.

She chuckled at the preciousness of the man's shock as the hunger pain in her guts called more insistent; she nibbled at her lip to squash the rush.

"He's stronger than before," Theron said.

"He's grown."

"Skeletons…" the horde whispered.

The culling shadow warped moonlight pale, matching Dean's small protest movements like fractured reflection. Vaguely, he heard the horde speaking- singing- diluting him. His eyesight blurred, but he managed to pick up details of a tall man, malformed and commanding, who led the others. The master, so familiar, opened his arms to set a glazing of apparitions free across the expanse of the rooftop. The wraith children shivered the night with delighted giggles. The stolen phantasms mockingly pawed at the hem of Dean's jeans, grasping to pull him forever in their legion.

"Come play. Come play."

_"Ke tín Konstantantinoúpoli..."_

The corrosive, arctic cold of her song ignited the crust of his skin and stained his soul with her disease. His single-minded intensity deadened and the spark of rebellion retarded under the influence of her Venus flytrap voice, seductively hypnotic. The relentlessly hungry nightmare cut teeth on the connections of Dean's brain.

_"Trís khrónous ná tín rízis"_

Losing. He's losing and he knew it. His wounded pride needled into a frustrated, throaty scream, which hoarsed into nasally yowl. Hands flying to his ears, he shielded and bellowed to lock out as much as his voice and hands would let him. In his rasps, he buried her song until a flicker of adrenaline shot in his heart. He couldn't go mellow yellow again.

"No sweet, you are my precious one."

The horde closed tighter, creeping and skittering like a smothering hand, completing the blackness on his sight.

"No where to go." Nysa said. "Only home."

He screamed soundless, the shadows speaking to him at once in a uniform noise for him to obey. Dammit, he didn't survive hell, angels, and Lucifer to die without a fight. Unable to deny her call, he raced to use the remains of his faculties and form even the most basic of plan. Unable to deny her call, Dean blinked hot, trickling tears of effort. "Get—Arrrrrgggggghhhh"

The masses combined in tone until the song barreled over Dean's pathetic scream-whisper. He fumbled, managing only to keep his balance when a hand slickened against the slime covered windowpane of the skylight. He pushed up and wobbled, ready to collapse. Panicked, he knows the creatures are right. He had no escape. Without notice, his grime covered hand snaked inside her rough-skinned fingers as she strokes the lines of his palm, drawing him to come quietly.

"Time to go home, brother bone," Theron said, closing in to join Nysa.

"I chose you." She whispered. "My son."

The word "son" jerked his mitt back on impulse as if his mind couldn't accept the claim she spoke. Fixating on the dirty hand and staring at it with a sadistic humor, he laughed a silently at the irony of how he might survive. He flashed a bracing grimace, forming the only plan he could in the chloroformed mind. Moreover, he might not have had a better plan had he been operating on all cylinders. Outnumbered and body and mind near comatose, he had little choice. Flinging back, he launched every bit of effort and nerve not yet null to dive down into the skylight's pane.

Smithereens of glass devastated the overhead of the main foyer and lobby, rupturing the masked peace of the inn. At first, the weightlessness and soundlessness relieved pressure on his overstressed, ill body, which contented at being free from control burden. Downward Dean and the glass plummeted. Even when his mind kicked at the thought of impact, the dust didn't clear enough for him to panic. Instead, he muttered on autopilot the one word warning of the dark army.

Dean may have been oblivious to his fall circumstances, yet it blistered in Bobby and Sam, who gaped at descending man. Still unaware of a more serious, pending attack, they screamed almost upon the sound of the shatter. They sprang to their feet, moving with intention. The effort did little to save the watch of Dean's body, seemingly unmanned and vacant, plummeting to the first floor unfettered.

With aghast knowledge of failure, Sam ran. His legs screamed from the over taxation. His arms outstretched as if he might catch his brother. Even if he possessed the strength, his legs were not long enough or fast enough to get there but not for a lack of trying. Sam vaulted over a chair, while Bobby kept pace behind him.

Both men shocked as the inevitable crash clapped thunderously when Dean splattered through a table and continued with a deafening thud upon the floorboards. The landing buckled at the weakened planks and it's a sheer wonder still held weight.

Jittering, Dean shocked, flopping arms and legs in a mangle. His mind and body betrayed by the creature's sickness and the injuries of the fall. Finally free from the dark things call, the sickness grew and convulsed in punishment. Yet the sickness dulled the stab wound in his stomach and the fracture in his right arm. The peculiar turn of the appendage whacked against the floor in a tremor, offering alive pain.

Sam bounded long strides and skidded a knee drop to stop beside Dean. The floor grumbled under strain when Sam heard a dull thud as Bobby dropped to his knees next to them. Carefully, Sam too stock of the situation and nudged at a wood spike jammed into Dean's gut. The sharp javelin drove through skin, muscles, and bone, clearly through his back and out the side of his abdomen caused Sam's worried hand to tenuously surveyed how to remove the blood-pumping opening. Bright scarlet seethed Dean's clothes, making it impossible to detect the seriousness of the injury.

In the nebulous –one-track-- mind, Dean grumbled and reached out, gasping painfully. Despite the cloudy will and serious injury, he had to warn his family- his real family –about this deathtrap. The pushed air raked across his dry flake tongue, crisping and ready to snap at the first word of pressure, but he repeated his warning with each sucked in gurgle "Army."

"Dean! Take it easy. I should have never listened to him about the memory flashes!" Sam demanded. "I should have—"

"Ar…..army….a….a…arm…"

"Just hold on." Bobby prodded softly.

Missing the warning's meaning, Sam directed his actions to the gnarly shard and yanked it out with a quick suction. Tossing the stake aside, Sam ripped his shirt's edge, jamming the fabric bits inside both sides of the damaged, overflowing wound. Dean's eyes shot wide as if angry, staring and blaming for the pain, yet a strange pleading need sparked in the irises.

In the strangest of recollections, Bobby shivered at the pale expression and the shocking familiar tone upon Dean's face. The man he knew so well had the same green eyes and strong, angular features but looked terrified, lackluster, ashamed, and incredibly young; however, worst of all, Bobby finally understood why. The tarnished, dangling crest, which still roped Dean's neck, hammered the final nail of truth as if a coffin slammed shut.

Bobby narrowed his eyes to soak in the darkness, discerning moving shadows. Then the ever increasing, negligible rumble of voice echoed from all directions.

"What is that sound?" Sam asked when the songs struck a nerve in him. Reacting, Bobby pushed Sam away from his brother's injury and plunged a quick finger in the pooling blood, coating his hand with fresh, warm blood upon it.

"Are you nuts!" Sam bellowed as Dean boomeranged up in pain, smacking into Sam's grasps.

"Buying us some time," Bobby said, leaving Dean's side to slap a bloodline across the first stair leading to the upper levels. "Get him up! We got to move!

"Ar…..aar….army."

Sensing the danger before he saw it, Sam glared at the skylight opening. As his inspection flew over the levels , he noticed the impending attack. Upon the third landing, a creature bore down at the trio. "God, it's alive." He whispered under his breath, barely giving the words any sound at all, trying to hold the wound and brandish a gun from the back of his waist.

"No time for that," Bobby instructed. "THEY'RE alive. Too dangerous, especially with a man down. Get him up." Bobby demanded, noticing more movement from shadows on the landings above them.

Sam doesn't question. Years of respect afforded Bobby a large pass on explanations, particularly when a battle was close. Any questions can wait. Sam swung Dean's wrenched arm over his own shoulder, hearing a pop when the appendage bent. More cautiously, he snaked this other arm around the waist and applied pressure on the wound as he clumsily got his brother on wilting leg. Doing his best to drag Dean to the door, Sam struggled with the leaden weight.

"Chosen." Nysa echoed down the stairs, drawing closer to the first floor.

"All my friends are skeletons!"

As the voices called, Dean scrambled his feet to shift in the opposite direction, even as Sam overpowered the control of Dean's shut off mind. "No. Don't move. I got you," Sam demanded as he shuffled a few more steps toward the door.

A multitude of wraith instantly swarmed, buzzing bees zipping about and pouring out any crevice in the second floor. Downward the deranged children scrambled to the outside entrance and corporalized to block access and escape.

"Too late!"

Zipping under Dean's other arm, Bobby smeared a hand at the sodden shirt with precision not to add to Dean's pain burden. Then, just as mysteriously, at the first enclosed room, he painted crossing lines on the front.

"Inside Now!"

Swerving Dean's full weight over his shoulder, Sam hotfooted through the threshold. Once they were inside, Bobby slammed the door with a thud as several wraiths blustered at the door.

"Wraiths? Man someone wants us real bad to have a horror convention!"

""I need the bloody shirt." Bobby instructed. "Get it off of him."

"Want to clue me in?"

"Love too. How do you feel about the 10th plague of Egypt?"


	12. Valley of Bones

**

* * *

Then… Ellsberg, Illinois - July 1990

* * *

**

With a hard thump, Dean's heart backfired, sensing the weight of the crest pendant upon his freckled flesh. Each time the cold metal tumbled, striking off rhythm to his heartbeat, a shiver jerk assaulted him from the impact point to his toes. Nysa, relishing the reaction, picked up the medallion and twirled the circle in her delicate fingers, only to let it proudly fall back in place on her new beloved. Lowly, she droned a melancholy hum, rocking the immobilized boy in her embrace as much as tamping her own gluttony. When the cravings radiated full peak, she rocked faster in response, while her hum evolved into a moan of unclear notes.

"Still clinging to the hope that he will be different? Perhaps, if you try hard enough, the boy will end us. You know the rules. We have to pay," Theron taunted to sate his brutality.

"Pay for what you have done. Pay with all my sweet ones," she said, clenching and turning her head to side dismissively. "My new sweet one."

"We will never be free. All we hope for is the momentary cease of pain."

She petrified when she felt Theron chuckle into her rings of curls, amusing at her reflexive cringe. Through the many years, Theron knew the signs and strummed at them ruthlessly when it came to feeding.

"Look at him. So sweet and fresh. All the things we dream of."

Then all logic and reasoning died. A perfectly cruel, grotesque smile, spread upon her features. Whatever beauty she possessed paled in the malicious grin upon her lips. As a last attempt at humanity, she gave a miniature snivel even as monstrousness filled her eyes. Famine bared her close to Dean, and she absentmindedly raked her spiny teeth along the nape of the boy's neck, puncturing the skin with a razor, superficial slit.

"There for the plucking."

"You're not the one are you?" She whispered in a velvety, seductive voice to the unconscious boy. Her demeanor soured animalistic and deadly. Her treacherous tongue flicked over the wound.

When she rose, her breath hitched relieved and didn't even pang guilt when Avel pushed her back from the boy.

Her husband stood shocked, disgusted, and delighted all at once. "Don't. He's the one." Avel said.

"Please. I need it," Nysa cried. "You need it."

As she offered Dean's arm to Avel, her own full set of teeth drilled and nibbled, breaking smile upon the boy's arm, bleeding a glossy blood sacrifice.

"Do it. Please," she said meekly as other dark eyes gyrated to watch the pair's inevitable lapse.

Stroking a finger along each indentation mark upon Dean's skin, she gathered a mere swipe of blood, rubbing it upon her husband's parched lips. "He's not the one."

In that instant, Avel's hunger flourished with the first taste. Driven, he latched on Dean's arm, devouring the outpouring scarlet. Meanwhile, Nysa unleashed her own fervor by suckling at the slit upon the child's neck. All the while, she caterwauled in tears.

"There, there, sister. Others will come. And this way, he will be with us forever." Theron eyed the oil pot and tossed a bit of kindling to start a fire, but it was all too late.

A shrill, brutal shriek of animal joy echoed through the creamery. The pack scrambled, gearing to fight over the last food morsel. Sadly, or perhaps luckily, Dean was too addled brained to feel what happened.

Jumping to the lead of the wild ones, a large male bludgeoned a massive paw squarely into the yapping mouth of another. Savagely, one creature yelped and jumped as another snapped fingers back. They snarled like wild dogs, but beautifully still human. A multitude of rough hands grabbed at Dean in a tug-of-war pulling in him haphazardly until the stress on his body appeared it would draw and quarter him. Soon, the horde's bloodlust would eat the young one alive.

**********

At the best of time, anyone would describe John as full of piss and vinegar. Even the nicest compliment from a long time friend would be cocky, self-assured, asshole, or, at best, a rightful sonvabitch. Tonight, however, he was none of those things. No matter how he pretended to be normal, the gait of his strides was tentative. Hesitantly, he crossed the catwalk of the creamery, sliding up the metal soundlessly with leg muscles angrily shaking. In spite of the company- Bobby, Harvelle, Caleb and a four- legged Cooper-- he seethed with rightful aggression and worry. He snapped a furtive, accusatory glare upon Harvelle, wondering if the urge to strangle the man would ever vanish.

Carefully, they crept the expanse of the catwalk until they lingered over the main floor of the factory. From the interconnected walkways, spreading in a spider web to the machinery below, the shadowy ones had no idea a hunter's faction gained ground amid the numerous metal tendrils.

Rightly, each man primarily fixated upon the bones, the fifthly trophy shrouds of dead children. Bones casted about, stretching elastically along a diluted blood pool upon the floor. So many empty faces that died a horrid and undeserved death jabbed inside the pale, beating of John's heart, connecting him to every little one torn from some happy family. He stiffened in tension until the angularity of his body moved robotically. Singularly, the next view concreted him to a faltering step.

In the midst of the remains, at least 20 dark creatures snapped and snarled, yelping for a pieced of what appeared to be a soggy carcass. Instantly, he knew it to be Dean. Thousands of tiny thoughts stopped- froze inside his head as his son's name repeated a loop in his head.

The comrades stared in revulsion as Dean volleyed around on the sea of creatures. For all his urgency, John stifled his scream, but the four-legged companion at Caleb's side bellowed. With a defeated howl, the canine soared, scrambling over grated metal and down stairs. Great gobs of spittle flung from drawn jaws as he bellowed a threatening growl at the dark ones.

Alarm poisoned the hunger of the pack and they coldly discard the boy to battle. Dean siphoned in a desperate breath, pain fabricating awareness. A hot, stinky tongue slathered at his cheek, rousing and nudging. His tiny hand grasped a fist full of fur, scuffing behind Cooper's ear. Suddenly, his appendage exhausted, splattering down as his eyes rolled backwards.

Racing behind the snarling dog, the men blasted gunfire, showering bullets through several dark soldiers. With a kickstand, John jumped the last rung of stairs, blood droplets flying. His friends marched only a few seconds behind. Instantly, he drew toward his son and the nuzzling canine.

Yet, Nysa, with a roar of protest, charged upon John. Her menacing eyes riveted upon ones who dared to interrupt her feeding. In a flash, she jumped, dragging the hunter into the bone yard pile. As he straddled John, wrestling and clattering among the bones, each step whirled him further from Dean.

Two monsters pawed at Bobby's legs, who just bounded the last stair from the catwalk. Instantly, he fired a blast into one creature as he swung over the rail crashing a boot into second's chest. Just then, a wiry female snapped down, blocking his path towards the young boy. The creature countered his stance, sailing Bobby back into a tangle black mess of the approaching horde. Noticing the predicaments, Harvelle and Caleb split. Harvelle raced towards the outnumbered Bobby as Caleb hotfooted for Dean and his exuberant animal companion.

Mindful of the attack, Theron summoned the deadly wraith, forcibly dragging Dean towards the feasting vat on a roller coaster ride of wraith children. Cooper bounded, snapping at anything, creature or wraith, that blocked his path as the warped young ones crashed Dean, head first, into the rotting filth. Theron raised a boot, jabbing upon the back of Dean's head and driving him into the layer of stagnant blood.

Spiraling to the underbelly of the dead, Dean inhaled black-red sludge into his lungs and promptly coughed in involuntary survival mode. Theron and his unwitting wraith minions delighted in the subtle popping sound of each breath. The faceless, pale with the graveyard tan, would soon welcome a new brother to the bones. The boy's eyes snapped open when the ghostly legion spouted little noises- little screams. Only now, he faintly struggled at his lack of will and his stolen breath. Dean gurgled and breathed a spit bubble as the last dribble of air escaped from his lungs into the murk.


	13. Let My People Go

**

* * *

Now… Copeland, Michigan

* * *

**

As the painted blood markings dribbled from the lines Bobby just made upon the door, the older man shivered at the uneasiness that his hand covered with the life force of his adoptive family. Even though necessity dictated it for his survival, he choked back his feelings for now as he varnished the wall, doors, and windows with Dean's sodden shirt, leaving Sam to attend to the injured. Glancing back, he double-checked the progress, finding that Sam heated a pocketknife blade with the flame of lighter. Then, slowly, with a look of regret in his eyes, Sam applied the metal upon the serious wound.

"Arrrrrrrhhhhh."

"Just once more." Sam said meekly, cringing as he began the process again. As soon as the metal blazed orange, he struck it on the last section of the wound.

"Argggh." Dean bolted upright as Sam pressed a heated knife blade upon the serious wound. With Sam there to catch him, he thudded hard, stopping before the wound broke open. Slowly, his strained, wheezing breath, shoved in and out as if clawing for oxygen. The air burst harsh in his lungs, chattering his teeth.

"I've stopped the bleeding, but he's spaced."

"Doubt he'll be able to fight them off again."

"You call this a fight? They tried to kill him with that fall!"

"Don't think so. They take their prey alive- not for long- but alive."  
Shaking his head, Sam shocked almost angry, unable to speak the thought that invaded his mind.

"Yeah. You got it. He risked it all to get us a warning."

"Of all the stup—"

"It saved him. And us! At least for the meantime."

"From the plague of Egypt?! Don't you think their focus on Dean's a bit narrow to be considered a plague?" Sam asked as he finished tying the rag tag ends of ripped curtain pieces, which he wrapped as a bandage around Dean's abdomen.

"Ever hear the tale of the one that got away?"

"Uh, technically, we live by that."

"You mean excel!"

"So are you channeling your inner Martha Stewart or—" Sam started, looking around the splattering of sanguine paint on every facet of the room.

"Worked in the Bible and you better pray it saves our bacon. Only change we got is to make it until sunrise, and you can be damn sure they want our boy dead."

"The first born plague? I know we pissed some powerful things off by not playing along with the Muppet Vessel Show, but—"

"First born ain't he?"

"And don't we need lamb's blood?"

"Sure, you got any? Mostly innocent blood will do."

"Dean- innocent?"

"Best we got. Not as strong as I would like, but we'll know soon enough. We just gave them a no trespassing signal, even if it's only for a few shakes."

"Won't hold them forever."

"Well, when the sun comes up they loose their little wraith fetchers. Might just even some odds."

"There has to be more. Some—"

"Come on, Sam. You know deep down that Dean won't let go of that kid in him that wants--"

"-- wants the world to be right."

"They have power over that innocence. If you didn't notice, they would have tried to whammy us. We don't fit the rule and I'd say you guilt'd your innocence right on out on the Ruby train and me- ah hell- I can't remember last time I thought the world would ever be right. Dean still thinks he can make this crap a world better."

"So because he still wants to swing on the playground monkey-bars, they have a door to his inner child."

"And those things aren't handing out lollipops."

The barred door rattled and pitched with shutters ever greater the chills possessing Dean. Frantically, the clatter ripened into a knock, then a pound, and finally a loud batter. Clump, slam, bam. The drill of rat-a-tat-tats echoed ceremoniously, calm and even, in the confines of the tiny bedroom. Multiple pings droned, clamoring to get inside, like thousands of tiny crickets scraping legs to announce dinner.

"Eureka," Bobby announced more uncertainly than he would have liked.

Shaking with a detox rumble, Dean wrenched and seized, arms droning in alarm to the tapping upon the door. He sputtered wordless ramblings that sprang like unwanted hairs on his vacant mind. Even when Sam applied more pressure to hold him down, the man only recoiled with the feeblest of mumbles.

"Little one, open the door." Several voices fused, mingling songs and rhymes with the power to control. Loudest of all, Nysa wailed, pitching her aggression against the shunning door, barring access to her claimed beloved. "Precious one!"

Faltering and bumbling, Dean's limbs wobbled, attempting to obey her summons. Since the rooftop, his greatest reaction forged, but only in feedback to enthralling voice. Her every utterance, a thousand jagged knifes piercing and deadening his mind. Unsettled, his fingers gouged at Sam's arms, barbing to get a path to the horde.

When the knocking rapped so hard and fast it resounded like an extended booming note and the voices clattered like a thousand pieces of breaking china, Sam's nerves frayed and he clutched Dean hard enough to cause pain to his brother, not out of spite, but sheer will to keep the call at bay.

"Stop it!" Sam screamed. "You aren't getting him!"

"Dammit," Bobby said as he reeled a fist with a quick jab to Dean's face.

Snap. As Dean's head flew back in reaction, he went to unconsciousness with a gasp of relief and teeter on Sam's arm. Then the noises and voices quieted, except for a low monotone moan as if they knew their target was out of commission.

"What are you doing!"

"Sorry, kid. He'll bust his guts to get to 'em."

"Okay, Rocky Bipolar, you want to explain yourself? From my Bible studies, the angels took the first born to—"

"Yeah, but that's only part of the story. Figure Dean's in enough pain without more of—" Bobby said, noticing the how pale and cold shivers upon Dean's skin. Instantly, he shed his outer flannel, offering it to Sam. "Help me get this one him. Might make him feel a tad warmer."

With effort, they dressed him in the flannel, carefully watching the broken arm and clotted, bandaged wound. Finally, taking the last half of the shredded curtain, they wrapped Dean like a cloistered monk. Once they had him settled on the floor, Bobby brushed a rising bruise on the young man's cheek, obviously regretting his guilt in placing it there.

"He'll live Sam. Won't be in a world series anytime soon—"

"You want to tell why, other than the obvious idea that Dean and I are bad boys who don't play well with angels and demons, that those things—"

"Something your Pop and I got to digging into plenty of years back. And Dean's shadow man wasn't a rank amateur either, but he did get us all involved with the The Atreidae."

"Wait, I know that name. Uh… some warring family that was involved in the one of first recorded mentions of cannibalism."

"That's them."

"That mixes how with the plague."

"They were used to make it happen. What can I say? You're dad with a hunting bone-- Course the way they are now threw me for a bit. They are supposed to be beautiful- alluring."

"Kinda look like puppy chow."

"Afraid that is a result from the last run in with 'em. That coat of arm proves it. Don't much like seeing it again. "

"Again? Did I miss the chapter—"

"Back when John about done anything to get to yellow eyes, he snapped up anyone and any lead he could. Pretty much the way all of us come into contact with ya. About that time, John and Harvelle were hot on ideas—"

"Jo's dad? He's the—"

"Dean's shadowy buddy. They were supposed to be on a standard wraith hunt, but ran smack into those things."

"So Harvelle got them dumped in our laps?"

"Unintentional. Truth is none of us saw those things a-coming."

"So something pulled their chains back on Dean when hell crashed the party?"

"Don't know. We faced the whole lot when they took upon themselves to shainghai Dean."

"How are they getting to him- drugs?"

"Voice. Got the skill back in a universally screwed up decision. Apparently, some high-ranking nobles fought long wars over control of a throne or land or some other useless idea. We traced them back—could never tell what officially turned the clan. Demon? However, knowing what we know it could have been a backstabbing angel. Soon after the next dot we connected smacked the Atreidae in the middle of Egypt.

"Murdered children back in the day."

"Sent their wraith to collect the first born. No one escaped, from the lowest servant to Pharaoh's own first-born son. Don't know who ordered it or what. Popular belief is God, but judging from his hands-off approach, we could spin the wheel of players for an eternity without getting it right."

"Except they are back in line for Dean."

Legend has it that, and this is mostly from scraps of notes passed on from an oral tradition—The eldest son in the Atrediae line struck a deal. Best we could figure is he pleased the demon and they made them into those creatures or he pissed his pusher off and got the lot punished. The house fell to two siblings. The sister had control unless she failed to produce a son. Didn't look like that was gonna happen until—"

"Things heated up in the bedroom."

"She aligned with another house to overthrow her brother's influence. Pretty soon she popped out a baby boy."

"Yeah, I remember the legend had him beheading—"

"Little bro played all patty cake nice to get back into the graces. First time he was left alone with the heir, he thrilled the tike with stories, songs, and rhymes then capped it off with the beheading. Course, it's not clear why he cooked it up and served the boy to ma, pa, and friends.

"Just for giggles. Evil is big on giggles."

"At the last course, he brought the severed head. The whole bloodline and lot got smacked with a universal curse on account of it.

"-- as we all do from time to time." The sarcasm of it all, even after his many experiences, struck Sam oddly. He chuckled about how anti-climatic the ordinariness of demon/angel deals sounded.

"Can't rest till they restore the house, but to do that have to have an heir."

"So they take one—"

"Thing is- they can't keep 'em. They're hungry- hungry for—"

"Great! We're being stalked by mind controlling Pied Piper cannibals!"

"Most urban legends bubble up from something actual. Learned that the hard way a few times."

"And we have no idea on how long your bloodbath will hold? Or what they want?"


	14. Meet Your Match

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****Then… Ellsberg, Illinois - July 1990****

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**

Fizz. Burble. An effervescence smattering of air frothed upon the wet surface, offering Dean's only plea from beneath the cesspool of remains. Just as the deaden gurgle sounded, Cooper surged on his hind legs, bounding, scrambling, and propelling over the throng of wraith children between he and Dean. Before the animal even struck floor, the dog's trashing fangs latched and pierced Theron's leg. The snarling gullet ploughed repeatedly into the thing's flesh and muscle.

Stupefied and marveled by the sudden painful attack, Theron lost bearing and crashed backwards, catching the lip of the oil vat with slithering fingers. The barest touch snagged the edge, toppling the contents as the brute splattered in the bone yard, Soused by the oil mess, Theron slid along the floor as the oil slathered, partially coating the creamery floor.

Cooper's massive paw slid in the lard mess, forging forward. Tearing at the creature until great gobs of blood mixed spit tossed with each snap down, the dog strove to inflict death causing damage, at least enough to secure his guard of Dean. He only ceased the thrashing to deflect a checking glance at the boy, who mumbled inaudibly a foot away.

Snarl! Clamp! Rip! Plunge! Copper bulldozed his massive nuzzle to grapple bites, defending against wraith and the leader. Changing tactics, the dog leaped for the torso, trying to get a clamp on the neck as he might a frightened rabbit, planning to shake and maul it to death.

Suddenly, the animal marked the arrival of his master when Caleb gutted a creature that made a move for Dean. The hunter, with an extended backbreaking flex of an arm, drove a screwing machete deep inside the belly, ripping guts as he wrenched back the blade. No time to celebrate any kill, the hunter straddled a half-rotten body, using it as a springboard to land next to Dean. His bombing legs exploded particulates of the vile bog throughout the air. With an urgent delicacy, he jerked Dean from the bloody mire before those same droplets had a chance to dispel. His muscular arms squeezed around the boy's ribcage roughly until Dean coughed a deep sudsy breath.

In response, Cooper whined, asking for any of the usual reassurances.

"Coop seek 'em!" Caleb bellowed adding incentive and encouragement to fuel the dog's attack. Then, the man bolted, pumping legs so hard that each step throb pained up to his hip joint. Caleb often relied on the canine, but today he needed his companion to hold the line long enough to get Dean to safety. Plainly then could the team attack with the viciousness the situation required. Until that time, it would be easy to use the child as a shield- a pawn- a bargaining chip.

In the time it took for the escape thought to begin, Caleb had no chance to act as Avel roared into the fray. The beastie tackled the hunter, clattering him into the bone pile. Once Caleb collapsed, Dean rolled from his arms while the monster battered repeated blows upon the hunter. Head lobbing, the man's sight grew dim and heady. When it seemed the monster shifted focus back to Dean, the hunter rallied to fight, even if it resulted in being used as a punching bag.

With a thunderous strike, Caleb splattered down again, rattling loose mounds of bones. As the battle shifted the bones, Dean jettisoned slipped downward. His arms and leg spread eagle as he tumbled among the bones, raking across a neat stack of skulls. Odorous mound of sludge and large broken bones dug into his back, adding sharp reminders of misery. In his lethargic state, he lacked the capacity to ferret rage or panic. Struggling to access his mind, Dean's body defied much response. At best, his voice shoved out a dim whimper.

Somehow, over the thunderous battle clash, John sensed the distress of his child. He nodded a double take as Nysa lunged at him. She immediately struck him with a powerful blow, spinning him in place. The force threw John upon the factory wall, landing just shy of Harvelle, who took on two wraiths as if lined them up for an amusement ride. John snapped back to his own deadly joker. His eyes locked on the woman who bore down on him with murderous intentions.

"Cannot take my chosen one. My son," she said, snarling in a garble difficult to understand.

"He's not yours!" John barked, his voice rebounding up into the catwalks.

In an instant, John attacked, driving into her, arm to arm, striking cobra blows upon her abdomen. When they broke away, she hooked around to come at him from below, but John doesn't permit her the pleasure. He pressed in, using all his hand-to-hand military combat training to his advantage, forcing the woman to the flooring with an uppercut.

Yet, her recovery, too quick to defend, thanked him with a kick to his ribs. She moved away, giving space and speed for counterattack, leaving John with nowhere else to go, but where she waited.

From a short distance, Harvelle blasted four 33 millimeter slugs inside one thing and then another. With a cock of his head, he triumphant rested a bloody blade on his shoulder and a smoking gun at his hip with his other hand. His hawk eyes sharpened, taking in the situation and varied predicaments of his fellow hunters. When his eyes lighted on Theron, he noticed the creature culling the others for protection. The battle numbers moved under the man's command decreasing the odds of straight on attackers.

"We're winning!" He announced loudly.

From somewhere deep in battle, Bobby cried out. "Keep the line! The boy!"

In that brief second, Harvelle locked sight upon Dean, who lay open for the moment- a prize to be taken so easily like finding a penny on the sidewalk.

"The boy will be fine. He's a Winchester," Harvelle reasoned.

As the creatures went on the defensive, the best choice- the only choice was to kill as many of these things while the hunters had a chance at the upper hand. He leered, knowing there was no greater feeling in the world than gutting some evil and, by God, he owed all of them plenty of hurt. Off like a blink, he rushed past each of the hunters. Along his charge, he bumped into several creatures currently engaging Bobby.

Even though the brush was unintentional, Bobby used the surprised momentum to swing, angling a blade into a group until his blade sunk into spongy flesh. A wraith swooped at him, moving in non-corporal form, playing keep away as he giggled with John's gun.

"Hey! Wanna play a better game?" Bobby closed his eyes, waiting to feel the rush when the blitzing wraith took form. The mischievous spirit zipped from the right, becoming solid for only a second, but long enough for Bobby to blast it. A white movement drew his attention behind him. Just outside his peripheral vision, he spied John's old-fashioned wrestling match with the most furious female of the clan.

Engaging her again, John drove his serrated knife into Nysa's stomach. He only had the opportunity for a single twist before she clawed into his ribcage. Desperately wanting to get to Dean, he dared a bold move, indiscriminately slashing the woman's face from eyelid to lip.

She raged, drawing razor back. The seething planes of her expression froze as a hot round of exploding buck shot erupted, pocking the other side of her face. She mewled as Bobby blasted another scaring round at the woman. She screamed, snatching at bits of her own skin.

"Get Dean," Bobby demanded. "I got her."

With little need for the prompting, John darted off, already taking in the status of the battle around him: Caleb faltered on the edge of defeat, Harvelle rushed into the glory of battle, Cooper struggled to hold the line, and Bobby covered from behind. Any one of them needed him, but still, in his heart, the only choice was Dean. Racing forward, his incautious steps pounded, trying to suppress the terror pumping in his veins from seeing Dean slumped so listless. Anguish crammed and threw breaths back into his lungs as the creature finished the attack on Caleb and made a play for Dean.

John ran. Ran so fast, his body looked uncoordinated, but the thing would get there before him. All Dean had for protection were small groans, blaring in John as much as jet engine upon ignition. Innately, John gasped as the wraith gathered around the man about to take his son. "NO!"

The primal yell inspired a vicious spark on Cooper's attentive ears. The dog knew the Dean was in danger and elects to leave Harvelle to stand against the throbbing, clamoring masses. He gnawed a dark one's face, ripping out a jawbone to get by and move faster. Never had the animal- A large thumping beast – charged or attacked so fiercely, not holding back on any level. As if moved by an unseen force, the dog was there, deflecting wraith blows, ramming his dirty muzzle into them, and growling menacingly.

The demented children turned to embrace the charging animal. Each mindless ones' arms bludgeoned and walloped, overwhelming Cooper. Loops of dying slobber dropped from the canine's jaw. Tiny wraith hands ripped at the animal until the attack tendencies ceased, losing the strength to fight. The dog whined, crawling with his last energy to shield the boy with his body.

Cooper circled, struggling for breath. Quietly, he sank his girth atop the boy. His lavish tongue slicked Dean's check and his muzzle rested in the crook of the boy's neck. With a long, labored whine, he stroked against the child as if he invited play. Then, he breathed no more, dying with a pleading, apologetic whimper.

Cooper's death sounds rallied alarm. Grasping with his small hand, Dean snatched a tuff of wet fur and weakly scratched to tell how sick and trouble he was, not realizing his canine rescuer could no long help him. Avel thudded the dog's body away. Open for attack, Avel's sharp teeth jabbed into the boy's shoulder blade. At first, Dean wriggled. The shift in his body allowed his eyes to catch a glint of pink glitter- Sam's matchstick house deep inside the discarded duffel. Whatever was happening, that bag meant protection. Once his body and mind settled, he could ask questions and worry about the fuzzy thoughts. Right now, he reached for the bag, and the weapons he always carried. Weapons equal life. His fingers move.

"Rule #7," he mumbled.

Rule #7. When you are in the unknown, do what it takes to get out. Protect yourself. Steadily, his tiny fingers nicked the model, branching out for the vaguest sense of safety.

"Good, tiger, good," John mouthed as he saw the small protest of Dean's searching hand. As if his willed command could save his son, he added, "Kill the bastard." Dean needed his father. The power for real defense was not in him. Any action the boy managed would serve as a delay.

John was nearly at Dean's location when Harv bellowed, outmaneuvered and outnumbered. The influx of protectors overwhelmed Harvelle leaving little chance of survival. Only he was close enough to change the odds, but caught between a rock and nowhere, John swallowed the decision on which to save. Dean, it would always be Dean. He snapped his head away, not watching any carnage that would happen, spotlighting his focus as he moved for his son. Dean needed him.

Yet, Dean's index finger latched inside the duffel's handle loop, spilling the content too far to reach any of it. The clawing digits panned for anything, just as long as it stopped his sickness. He fumbled, locking gazes with Avel, staring into umber crystal hardness of the creature's eyes. He felt light, like something called to him there, familiar and comforting. Before his will questioned his actions, and not knowing for the life of him why, he grasped at a boney branch- one white and clean. Dizziness crept through his body as Avel suctioned on him. Pooling whatever power he could, Dean jammed the jagged bone upward, managing to break the tip into the side of the ribcage. Something thick and sticky splashed on Dean's hands.

Before the shock of superficial wound wore off, John jumped, kicking in the air, driving the man away from Dean. His righteous fingers grabbed at the boney weapon and skewered it deep in-between two rib bones to angle into the thing's heart. Avel sputtered a mouthful of black tar blood before he crashed into the oily cesspool.

Before he even thought of having Dean safely in his arms, John had swung the boy up. Dean's hand latched, closing and opening his hands as if reaching. He followed the boy's gaze straight to the screaming pink of the house.

"That's my boy."

Fire starters. Oil. The plan, relatively simple, moved into action. John struck the anywhere matches-- matchsticks solider rising in defense-- against his jacket. The peaks of the roof sparked first. As the house burned, John took a safety step back and pitched the model deep into the creature's lair. A sense of pride and satisfaction welled in his eyes as the flames swell around the dark ones. His celebration's bottom dropped out when John found what was left of William Harvelle, cut off behind the fire wall.

The man, if he could still he called that, raised a pleading hand. Taking a step, John told the man he was coming- finding- help, but Harv simply shook his head as if he passed on another round of beer. He might as well have screamed, "I'm already dead." The taut strings of his throat snapped from bubbling blood springing like a geyser from a slash in his throat. A wraith shot through the hunter's abdomen, almost ripping the man in half, but managing only to sever a leg up to the hipbone. The appendage thudded on the floor as the creature came back for more.

Calmness overtook Harvelle, understanding of something as if he figured out all the mysteries in the universe while the creatures ripped him apart. His pupils expanded, blowing dark as he stared, calling John out. The glance between them for that second begged for something. Nodding, John agreed.

"John!" Bobby screamed, tugging at the man's shoulder. "We got to get outta here. All of it's going up!" Bobby yanked the half-conscious Caleb up tossing the man over both his shoulders.

"TOO LATE!" Bobby demanded, sensing John's overbearing idea of responsibility.

"I know," John said, a tug of a frown on his eyes.

Just then John ran, embracing Dean's cold form against his chest, aiming his gun back over his shoulder. With a one-eye aim, he fired, placing a bullet in Harvelle's skull, sparing the man from more torture and extended agonizing death. John didn't move until the white flames emerged around Harvelle,

For some unknowing reason, the creatures drew to the flames, like sadistic moths searching for something. Even as they moved, hands, legs, torsos, and faces burned. Skin polymerized as pitch as burning plastic, their own flesh as hot at the coal rubble. Many of them tugged at the blackened skin and sloughing muscles, facing the agony when avenues of escape still were around them.

"What are they—"

"I don't care," John said, "Those things have killed enough people. They can burn in Hell."

* * *

_**Author's note: If any of you will be so kind, in the future, please remind me never to have a battle with assorted namesless minions, 3 villains, a dog, a kid, and 4 hunters in the same scene. I think the voices in my head will never forgive me for using them all at once. LOL. :)**_


	15. Family Business

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* * *

Then… Outside of Kane, Illinois - July 1990**

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**

Wobbling, Dean drew his knees close to his chest, uselessly to cease aftermath fermenting sickness. Lost in between reality and nothing, the agony dredged forth. Along with the full-blown attack of pain upon his body, the most overpowering distress came from the rough hands harvesting and moving him. He struggled to hear and to see, but he only made out blobs of dark colors and muffled sounds. Unaware of his current safety, Dean panicked, kicking out his legs and punching his arm in hope to strike a blow to unseen foes.

"Easy. Nice and easy, now," Bobby said blandly as if he ran down a checklist, forcing his voice to not be forceful or emotional. "He's on fire. Got to get that temp-"

"Hospital's thirty minutes away and he won't make it like this. We're not gonna let that happen. Right, tiger?"

Fevered, Dean replied, in the same depleted and exhausted way he had since his rescue, in a series of incessant cries and muffled keens.

"Settle," John said, strangling Dean's joggling arms under control without subjecting further agony as he excavated Dean from the Impala's backseat.

"Kiddo, work with us now," Bobby begged, failing in his attempt to sound neutral. "You go on and come 'round."

Again, Dean groaned. The heat pulsated through the blanket wrapped around him. As soon as he cleared the car door, John flopped the bloodstained blanket, upon to the ground. "I got him." The haunting hardness of John's eyes warded of Bobby's attempted assistance. "Keep watch on Caleb."

"I'm fine!" Caleb barked, getting out of the passenger seat and leaning against the car hood.

"Then watch after each other. I don't care."

Not leaving room for disagreement, John stomped, throttling away without discussion and keeping his eyes on the rippling call of pond. Wrapping his arms tightly around Dean, he schlepped a path in the blue cast darkness until his boots sloshed in the shallow break between shore and water. Only a sense of dolor pulled his weary body to move and each step tested the architecture soundness of his battle worn and nervous legs.

"We're just going to get you cleaned up a bit. Okay?" John lied, trying not to admit the boy's fever scared him as much as the remnants of this battle.

In response, Dean fitfully wallowed a delirious head against his father, raking the blood caked, and matted hair upon John's skin while his tiny hands clawed and moored like hooks searching for a crag of security.

"Easy." John said softer, following with a huff of deep, worried air.

Rending Dean away a few inches, John carefully balanced the boy to ballast in the deep of the pond. Supporting the child with one arm, John cupped and traveled a handful of tepid water in hopes to bathe the fever and blood stains away. The freeing nature of the drift appeared to appease the distress alarm in the boy, but did little to affect the formidable anger inside John.

The hunter's shoulders tightened as the scarlet runoff showered rivulets from his son. In wanting to banish the sight away, John's hand struck upon the plaguing cold of the coat of arm necklace. Even in the muffled glow of the azure moonlight, the engraving stood apart, but John wouldn't ever forget the emblem. His muscled solidified and his body bobbed down. If not for remembering his son on his arm, John might have drowned, pulling under in that anger. Like always, Dean reminded him to keep sanity.

He twirled the insignia in his hand with a single turn before he jerked the chain, snapping it into two uneven pieces. While Dean shocked at the sudden movement, John rubbed a thump over the raised symbols, clearing making out the etching in the moonlight. His fingers fumbled in distaste of the object, and it escaped his grasp, dropping on Dean's bare neck. The disturbing crest punctuated Dean's agony with a spilling of staccato yip that threatened to send John over the brink again. He snatched the emblem and launched it so hard the medallion walloped upon the shore's edge.

"You havin' any trouble?" Bobby asked, picking the necklace upon before it swept away, lost forever in the depths of the pond.

"He's fine."

"I was asking Dean about you." Bobby bellowed reminding John in a special way how uneasy he felt at the moment.

"He doesn't want to hear it," Caleb remarked.

"Later. Once Dean's taken care of, we'll have our say in plenty of time."

"They don't understand us, do they?" John asked Dean. Puffing out his chest, John cramped in a large influx of air, floating Dean into more of a cradling in his arms. The relief of a lower fever couldn't erase the horrific reminders of the battle. The sliver of moonlight spotlighted the deaden colored blemishes of deep bruises and abrasions. Worse, the bite marks gored and paralyzed on the boy's skin like crater pocking the surface. Clearly, Dean fought the best he could, but had been overwhelmed. A calloused finger roughed the ridges of the bite mark on Dean's shoulder, clearing away only the bloodstains, but only time would take away the knotty, toothy openings.

Unpleased by the touch, Dean grumbled and shifted in a helter-skelter of pain throes.

"Shh, now. Be strong." John hushed. "Like I know you are.""

"Good advice. Why don't you--" Caleb barked from the pond's bank.

"Not now," Bobby demanded, hemming in the topic. "Neither of them are holding it together much."

"Like you don't see it. Why not now?" Caleb grumbled under his breath.

"I do and you know it. But, what good will it be if it cost us Dean and Sam? End of argument," Bobby offered, never taking his eyes off John and Dean.

"God, get a grip--" Only the newest of Dean's yowls sealed Caleb to stop the tirade digging at his craw.

"What's the verdict?" Bobby yelled to the center of the pond, raising his voice an uncomfortable octave.

"The fever's better." John said to no one in particular, ignoring everything and everyone except the tiny face sticky with caked blood. As he sprinkled a drizzle over Dean's cheek, the droplets trickled down, wafting a red tide to ebb around them, a baptism of blood swirling in monument to a bastardized moment.

"It's all better." John whispered.

The mum of John's words filled Dean's ears, and he strained to listen. At first, he came up empty in a vague existence, as if he might be that twinkle- the imaginary emptiness of a cradle- that his mother wanted to fill. He once believed nothing bad could happen as long as his mother was around. He was sure Mary was invincible. He was wrong. Yet, the ensnaring thought of his mother slackened his resolve, relaxing him to the core.

Letting go proved to be the hardest smack of reality. Once he gave in, the sickness fully captured him, confirming how alive he was. He bleated a sharp series of hacking breaths, unleashing putrid breaths without expelling pulling anything from his treacherous stomach. The pain captured his muscles, screaming his body alive as if thousands of overcharged electrodes coursed through him, stealing the tough guy edge of the stone-faced hunter, leaving only an intimidated child. Gagging air, he tumbled sideways, sloshing and floundering into the balmy water. He felt something heavy latch around his shoulders, and he instantly whimpered in alarm.

With Frantic, gentle hands, John hoisted Dean upon a hip and ferried the boy back into the fret of his arms. Dangling the boy, he patted soothing strokes on Dean's back until his son burrowed, nestling at the attention.

Once Dean's head rested against John's cheek, a thistle of facial hair scratched a sense of safety and a promise of sanctuary, instantly calming him as his father pulled him close like a second skin. "Ddda—" he stuttered anchoring a hold to his father's shoulders.

"Gotcha, tiger. I'm here."

"Bake-- in the——wraith in—" Faintly, a spurt of warning spurred in his head, wanting to tell his father everything knew about the handful of information that could lead his father right to the wraith. Dean intermittently and scarcely remembered his time with the Atreidae, feeling more like he sleepwalked in flashes of unconnected ideas, but the time in the bakery rang clear. He was a hunter and he was going to do his job: Rule #15- Hunters finish the hunt no matter what and before anything else.

"Shh," John mumbled the sound whistling in a wheeze.

The miracle coaxing of his father's voice exhumed a sharper reality for Dean. "Don't feel good."

"You will."

Emerald eyes, smooth as wet pebbles, cracked open and batted in thanks of the welcome solace. John's touch insisted that he return to himself. His father soothed him wordlessly, bereft of any commands or stoic grandstanding. For now, he was safe in the sanctum of John's arms. Knowing that, Dean stopping struggling and sniveling, and went silent.

"Don't be afraid," John calmly said. His voice gruffed with a hint of compassion and genuine uncertainty. "You're alive." After that, he joined the solitary silence of deeper, more troubled waters of his own mind.

The quiet lingered until the gently rise of sleep breaths fell from Dean's lips upon the hairs of John's neck. Without a vague notion as to why, John began the slow tread back to shore, carrying Dean as if a unseen corpulent weight quashed at his shoulders. Comparatively, the boy weighed nothing, but the repercussion on what to do pulled at John.

Blank faced, he stepped onto some browning grass at the pond's edge. His sodden boots squish as he headed towards the car.

Bobby, not waiting, shed his flannel, taking charge of drying the wet child. Obviously, he wanted to speak, say the horrible things on his mind or say the right comforting thing, but words escaped him. His eyes froze on the sadistic tie-dye stains, markings the boy's clothes. Instead, he gave John a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, taking Dean away like a fragile, cracked, overcooked eggshell.

As Bobby secured him in the backseat, Dean caviled a bale of whimpers before he collapsed, hugging the seat.

John's blood drained from his face, pale and unsubstantial as flour. Standing a foot apart from the car, he inspected each move of the precious cargo and his mind churned silent absolutions. No arguments about it, he had to tighten the reins on his children. Had he become too lax?

"That's it. Don't even think about that," Caleb finally broke the Berlin-hard wall of silence with his usual fly by the seat attitude, crashing a tanker into the forbidden topics. "You can get pissed all you want. Shut me out, but don't you—"

"Stop it!" Bobby said forcibly under his breath as to not disturb Dean. "Now ain't the time to pick at --"

"You want to watch him suffocate all the good outta that boy!"

"We got other concerns. I need to contact Ellen, let her know—" Bobby said.

"That's my responsibility." John barked in an even tone.

"Ain't that a fine fiddle? You plan on riding the guilt wagon all the way over there on your own. Last I knew, we all were that fracas back there."

"My choice."

"As if any of us had druthers to let that boy--" Bobby's eyes sparked and perched on his lips.

"I made the final call," John replied, peering inside at Dean. He gently nudged the car door closed. "As of right now, none of us tell Dean. He needs structure now."

"Don't fret about it. I don't think any of us could get through that head of yours," Bobby said.

"Harvelle shouldn't weigh on him. Only on me."

"God, you're a thick headed bastard." Caleb bellowed. "The man got your son in this mess! Harvelle loved the kill- the danger. He should have gone after Dean and then you wouldn't have had to choose. He gambled with Dean's life and made a mistake, a deadly mistake, and you need to remember that."

"Don't! Laying it off on a dead man isn't right. I let Dean go on that hunt."

"Oh, we know that! You're just as bad—barrel in a hunt without checking the facts. Anything to get your revenge. You want mindless warriors out here. Now, you know what happens. Harvelle screwed the pooch and could have--"

"Harvelle dying sucks," Bobby said. "Coulda- hell probably will happen to any one of us. Harv knew the risks and died horribly for it."

"Ellen deserves the truth. Best if you mind your own. This here's family business,"  
"Funny. Thought we were all family." Bobby said.

"So you get to decide when something is family business and boot us out of the super special hunter clubhouse?" Caleb questioned. "How about telling Ellen the truth-- Telling yourself the truth!"

"I'm going to let you slide, for now, cause of Coop."

"Blow it out your ass, John! Why do you think Cooper went nuts when he saw those things? He went right for Dean."

"Don't you dare say I didn't go for my son. You know—"

"Dean the kid you love, Dean the solider you need? Or Dean the obligation? Which one did you need to save?!"

"Best if you shut your mouth."

"Or what?"

"Don't walk this line with me." John warned. "I know my children."

"You know your storm troopers! Coop's dead because he understood what it was to not have conditions! Did his job. Can you say you want that kid without any of your conditions?" A caustic edge tinged his voice. "You spend all of this time building perfect soldiers when--"

"He's just saying the boys are important to us, too," Bobby retorted to put a cap on the situation before it got out of hand. "Dean's not here to make any of us feel better or ease our pain. Damn kid tries to hold us all up when we fall. Things have to change."

"You're agreeing with him?!"

"Afraid so."

"Did you ever notice Dean feeding him table scraps? He tried to act like Coop was a dumb animal that only annoyed him- be that hard ass you wanted him to be. Got news for you- he wasn't. Why don't you guilt over that one! Your kid in front of you and you barely know anything beyond your mold—that front you expect. Coop knew those things had someone that belonged to him. I'll miss the damn mutt, but he died for something he loved and understood. I don't expect an apology for that. Kinda strange a dog knows what you should."

**

* * *

**

**Now… Crumpecker's Inn...Copeland, Michigan**

* * *

Tracing a haphazardly carved name in a chair's arm, probably from some snot nose kid marking his territory during the Inn's busy days, Bobby flopped on the seat, perching near the barricaded door. Since the use of his legs returned, they just didn't cooperate as they once did. He could blame the demon who possessed him, but he likely figured old age caught up with him. His legs stung as much from pacing as the rattled nerves of listening to the Atreidae click nails, dig, and cry in effort to break the blood seal.

The seal held for now; however, not for the lack of effort. The Atreidae bulldozed strikes at the wall with force to rival world wars and nuclear bombs. Sadly, each attempt meant the blood protection dwindled and would eventually fall.

"Ain't ever been one for the waiting game," Bobby announced over the dark ones' mewling. "But I'd give my eyeteeth for a sacrificial lamb or high noon with an incoming Calvary."

"I think Dean would prefer the virgins." Sam said ill-humored, trying hard not to let the dark infestation knock him off his skills.

"Yeah. If he could stay out of the gutter sometimes, we'd be a lot more secure about now. Course, we ain't exactly the Boy Scout type either.

"Understatement.

"Well, at least he's been out and dreaming of Valhalla time right now. And, you should get some shuteye, too. One of us—"

"Not gonna happen. Now when I can't wrap my head around how many layers there are to the Winchester curse.

"Damn, you mean, you ain't found of Angelic or demonic paparazzi," Bobby said, trying to allay the tension of waiting for battle. "They're your biggest fans."

"Oh yeah, most of them have poster on their walls of us. Wanted posters! Preferably dead written on the bottom."

"Guess that history lesson didn't make you feel better?"

"Not…uh, not in the slightest."

"At least we know why Dean felt the things were familiar. They whammied him good back in the day."

"Did a good number on him today. "

"Seemed like a blessing that he walked on the dark side of the moon and didn't remember all that. Pretty much what he could recall wouldn't have been enough to place those things."

"Not when you didn't."

"Whatever called them- saved them. I guess we left a good reminder of how we parted company—"

"In the flesh. Pun intended."

"Should be dead. John and I barricaded that place once we got Dean outta there. "

"And they ran to the fire doesn't explain how they survived either." Sam offered as he sliced sturdy strips of another curtain with a pocketknife, intending to fashion a makeshift burn pile out of the cloth kindling and torn up books.

"How's that coming."

"Should hold us long enough." Sam mumbled as he sucked a new nick on his thumb. The prick of blood made him fathom how much life had been spilled already in the Winchester cause. "Can't believe Dad really killed Harvelle."  
"Christ! Don't tell me you're going to fasten to that."

"No--- Maybe--- I -- Just when Meg—"

"I got a grind to settle with that bitch." Bobby said.

"We don't blame you. Bobby you took a knife for Dean- for us.—"

"That aint' why. Evil like that deserves to die. It ain't personal."

"Man, when she took me over— I thought she lied about Dad killing--- just she hurt Jo by telling her--"

"Ya didn't think it was important to mention?"

"I wanted to believe Dad was better than that. "

Sam scanned to the window, taking a serious inspection of the first streaming indication of an impending sunrise. In just under an hour, the odd would better favor them. Sadly, he couldn't recall the last time he did something as simple as watching morning arrive. Along the way, battles and weapons become more important—winning at all cost became important. Ironic it took an Apocalypse for the real worth to return to him: Family- Saving people- Hunting things. All his good intentions lead to horrible choices and consequences. Every time he tried to shape the future to what he imagined, things always got worse. Good intentions was a pill he couldn't swallow anymore- too distasteful. Only now did he return to the roots of right was right, even if it came at a personal cost.

"Your Dad was a good- misguided- man. Kinda think his kids did a might better."

"Thanks. You always tell such horrible lies, but if I was-- we all were better --- I wouldn't have been a patsy. Revisiting the sins of my father?"

"Kid, no matter what you think about John, more importantly about yourself, he tried. Imagine where we would all be if no one stood against them. Harvelle's death, even if John carried the weight, was mercy. If you had seen what was left- what pain that Harvelle had going--"

"It scares me how easy it was for us to kill- not evil, but-- Just to be hooked on that path—we have to do better."

"Hummppph. Never thought I'd hear the old Sam talking. Got to say it's damn good to see him not beating himself up about everything."

"I wouldn't go that far." Sam suddenly embarrassed that me may have forgotten all the poor decisions that lead them to every point in their lives. "Our family business turns to nightmares too quickly."

As if on cue, Dean bayed, seeming to be panged by Sam's words even in the filtering, waking edges of consciousness.

"Yeah what he said." Bobby remarked, glancing as Dean mumbled more in sleep. Instantly, he feared he might have to slug Dean again.

Sam laughed. "I think that was a protest for his imaginary virgins to let him heal up before round two—"

"Good you know that healing ain't a crime. Neither was Harvelle's death. Truth be told, I'd have liked to have shot him for getting Dean in that mess. Coulda put a round of buckshot in several asses that night and been damn happy to do it. In the end, none of us knew—couldn't have known-- about the Atreidae. We only put the pieces together years later when I found the crest in an obscure reference book."

"Wish you had gone further to find out who made them."

"Weren't really looking for angels or thinking they even existed."

"Yeah, hard to wrap your head around the grand scheme—"

"Like every other part of it, we aren't going to play nice with others."

"Have we ever?"

" This ain't about killing. Soon as day breaks, you take Dean and hightail it outta here. I'll distract 'em and be right behind you."

"Don't like leaving you behind."

"You're not. Can't really fight if we're worried about them getting ahold on him."

"Sweet one!" Nysa screamed in her ephemeral voice and bashed at the door with what sounded like her entire body.

"I'd wish they'd shut up for a second," Sam noted.

"All my friends are skeletons." Theron sang.

"Broken record." Bobby said.

The grueling scratches, gnawing of teeth and nails, shredded fading wallpaper and weak wood, drilling to get inside the stronghold. Any pain from the innocent blood mark was secondary to the hankering for the kill. The pitter-pat of little hands and feet bashing at the hallway wall and destroy the protection. Raucous sounds of creatures tearing down the walls in a thousand tiny cuts.

"Dammit. Don't look like we have 'til sun up!"

Neither argued the unfairness of the battle or the ill timing. With sunrise, the wraith would be harmless, but they weren't going to get that time. Loading up with every weapon they had among them, Sam and Bobby prepared to defend their only stronghold. Sam had never seen an Atreidae before, much less faced a creature who solely existed to consume the most innocent.

Wraith and Atreidae bodies thrashed against plaster that surrendered under their maddened efforts. Gnashing! Gnawing. Outside the terribly uncomfortable hiding space, the dark ones painfully earned a way into the room until the buzzing of their voices accumulated into what sounded like a plague of croaking frogs. Suddenly, a miniature finger popped all the way through, jabbing inside the room. As soon as it touched the naked blood, the digits sizzled. As it screamed, the wraith dug manically, taking on the pain. When more splinter fissures appeared in the wall, Sam and Bobby begun to fire into the holes, taking out as many as they could before the safety of the room was inevitably lost.

* * *


	16. Cold Feet

Now… Copeland, Michigan

* * *

Amid the smoke pouring off their guns, tiny cracks surrendered into expanding chasms holes, visibly destroying the structure of the wall and blood protection. Each fissure opened an entranceway for the hazy, intangible wraith, advancing and breaking as towering plumes into the stronghold. With a ceremonious hoop of victory, reminiscent of children shrieking at a pep rally, the young ones trilled from all directions—a thickened smoke zipping around Bobby, Sam, and Dean.

All at once, the hubbub calmed and murky images hung like greasy orbs in the air, a beautiful blend of danger and anticipation. Serenity, always unwelcome in battle, crept by in pendulous second. Yet, Bobby and Sam used the moment to scan for the unexpected, saving the ammo and fight for the wraiths' appearance or worse, the Atreidae. For once, Sam was thankful that John made them paranoid enough to care basic weapons even in down time.

Just when the hurricane eye silence hushed throughout the entire room, the tiniest of visual clues manifested on creaking floorboards. Glaring outlines of marching, invisible feet dropped like rainfall, painting the movements of the haunting children army. Pitter-Pat. Pitter-pat. Soft as a drizzle, the footprints splattered and vanished.

In an instant, Bobby and Sam laced back-to-back, pitting around Dean, who mumbled incoherently. Lashing with an iron knife in a wide arc, Bobby cut a clear line in the thick fog. When the area thickened and clogged again, Sam prompted a halted breath out, pitching a gasp and forming a nebulous fog. He shivered as the breathy moisture crystallized on his parting lips. The remaining chill crammed down his icicle rigid spine. Too many ghosts. Too great of odds. A portion of him wanted to scream, "You've got to be kidding me", but like someone said before there really ain't no rest for the wicked. He huffed again, scanning for the first strike.

"Yeah, I hear that," Bobby added his own huff. "Next week's episode is likely to be a repeat too." Bobby said, commenting that they had faced devastating odds too many times before to count. Somehow, the routine nature of it brought no comfort.

"Thanks for reminding me, again." Sam's voice flattened.

"Again!" A child's disembodied voice screamed, mocking Sam in a shrill.

Pitter-Pat! Every step rang in a deadly game of hide-and-seek. In the mist, faces almost popped into view, vague representations of children daring to be caught in this hellish game.

"No fair." A boy's voice said out of nowhere, echoing from every angle.

"My friend," another said.

"All our friends are skeletons," a young girl whispered.

Pitter! Patter! The tapping and rapping of the delicate stomp rapidly began to drill and pound into blurring, indistinguishable noises. Then, one by one, the steps died out until only a single set could be heard. Then, each phantasm corporalized, structuring an impenetrable arch around the hunters. Ashen faces tilted curiously, inspecting with large hollow eyes as if judging the worth of the newest members of the family. Little creepy boys and little creepy girls gawked over the three as if looking upon caged animals in a zoo, which solely lived- soon to die- just to amuse the masses.

"No fair. Too old," A girl, who was barely old enough to have made it to kindergarten, said as she twirled a curl ringlet around her pinky finger.

Without waiting for more whines or critiques, Bobby fired on her, scattering the spirit.

"Ké to ké tó Misí ri rí zi" some sang and others bantered out haunting rhymes, while outside the Atreidae joined in the melody with a gnashing of vocal chords. The sound was uglier than description, but insanely effective. Dean grumbled, his injured body moving before awareness of the situation kicked in gear.

"Sleepyhead"

"Not yet dead!"

With a miniscule rise in Dean's consciousness, the children spun in a merry-go-round style, jumping and spinning faster and faster until only a single boy stood motionless outside the kiddy crowd. Curiously, he strutted in the inner circle, eyeing Dean in particular. For the moment, he awed without a hint of mischievousness and nowhere near deadly.

"You come home?" It politely asked Dean and then sounded more commanding. "All our friends are skeletons."

"Get back!" Sam ordered as he slashed an iron knife at it.

"No fair."

"Big ones don't play fair!"

In the deep recesses, the danger awakened the switch inside of Dean. One dry eye opened and rolled like a ball bearing in baby rattle. Unsure if the room or he spun, Dean fought the unfocused view, wondering if he survived the fall, but there was too much pain not to be alive. His lips shoved out whining air, calling out to his brother; however, the meteoric stabbing in his head nettled pain down to his jaw and clinched it shut.

"Brother Bone!" A child flitted in a melody. "Come play!"

"Come play!"

Even with only his face popping from the wrapped curtain, the allure of the call meddled with his chemistry until he answered in a retorting groan. The weak reply magnetized the esurient dark ones beyond the door to coax with an incessant cacophony of songs and guiding tongues. All sounds demanded his obedience. Before he stretched his bunged vocal chords again, the wraith shifted in a massive pile, jerking and mauling the hunters like demonic ants devouring at a picnic.

Out of sheer tenacity and hope, Bobby and Sam fought despite the numbers facing them. Only the thought of buying time fueled each blast, stab, and punch; however, in the spirit congestion, simply holding onto a weapon became nearly impossible.

The young girl from earlier balled hard knuckles and pounded at Bobby. With a loud meaty grunt, he doubled over, but still he fired a sawed-off shotgun. With only the slightest of effects from the rock salt blast, she drew back another fistful of blows, clobbering Bobby's face. Feeling dizzy, he stood ground, managed to stay alert, kept sight of the both Winchesters, and tracked the wraith's movements. He fired a salt round as the girl solidified and nearly gashed out his throat.

Others took her place. Scrambling minions attacked from every vantage point. Even the squarely aimed round only served to hold the young girl at bay for sheer seconds. On her descent back, she screamed, pitching a tantrum in which the dark ones answered. The Atreidae's commands permeated the room, seeping in every crack and trailing into Dean's befuddled mind. Several wraiths straightened in attention, received orders to advance upon the weakened man. While his legs and arms sprawled, desperately clawing at the tortilla wrapped curtain, Dean rolled a few inches towards the door, even as he told himself not to obey.

"No choice. No choice!" The wraith sang.

Suddenly, a mass of tiny hands grabbed at him, pulling him to the door, unwilling to wait for their master's entrance or Dean's crumble.

"Don't listen!" Sam yelled. "No!"

"He can't help it!" Bobby bellowed, trying to free a path to get to Dean before he fully awakened into an Atrediae puppet. "Just hold 'em off!"

While he screamed in vain, Sam impetuously leaped and somersault tucked, taking the spirits by surprise. Sam dived, snatching at the toe of Dean's boot, which tucked beneath the wrapped curtain. The cloth wound tighter as he and the wraith waged a tug of war for control of Dean. Not content, the children swooped in from all sides and wrenched Dean in mid air, leaving Sam to dangle like a weight on a helium balloon. The gang formed a strange totem, plucking Dean from Sam's shaky grasp.

"Damn swarming gnats!" Bobby fired his last salt round, sending the blast at the ringleader of the wraith column and then started gashing with an iron knife at the rest until Dean thudded down into Sam's grasp.

"Can't kill 'em. Already dead. Save the solid ammo for Atreidae!" Bobby yelled, dodging a punch aimed at his face, only to catch one in the gut.

Sam shoved Bobby clear from a secondary attack and simultaneously fired a rock salt blast into the wraith soup. Using the diversion, lasting only seconds, Sam shoved his brother to the wall furthest from the door and nearest the window. Instantly, a wraith violently tackled him. Sam collapsed and staggered atop Dean; however, he recovered to use the downfall to shield, covering them both from the low vantage point. A multitude of gnashing, jagged hands pawed them over, diving crooks of raging nails in Sam's flesh. Despite his efforts, there wasn't enough rock salt in the world to stop the spirits, but he kept firing, hoping-- God-- someone-- would owe them a favor and would even the odds. For the first time, in what seemed like an eon of time, Sam prayed. Yet, no help came, only more thrashing hands.

Then, his gun emptied. Left with only his gun of solid ammo, a useless weapon on spirits, and his iron knife, Sam lashed out with the blade indiscriminately. Two creatures clawed at him, attacking a simultaneous low blow and a hard wallop to his jaw. His teeth rattled and clenched as he popped his jaw where the pain had just struck. Abruptly, they jerked Sam to the floor and away from Dean, skidding his lanky body across the room. Whirling arms lashed out as Sam scratched against the floor. Friction drove tiny splinters inside his palms and fingers from the raking wooden planks, leaving a trail of effort along the faded varnish.

"Sam!" Bobby screamed, before part of the wraith pack decided to use the seasoned hunter as monkey bars. The dangling children overpowered him, holding him less than a few precarious inches from Sam and Dean. The creatures called out to Dean, but Bobby answered, charging up with great speed. Once again, his knife struck thin air, but he trampled a stomp to a creature pulling at his leg. The spirit children's inexhaustible energy chiseled away at his body and strength. Bobby's reaction time slowed, and his attacks lessened in persistence. Several little ones latched onto his moving feet and plummeted him down on his face.

"Come play?"

He slammed hard on the floor, his head lobbing. Blood spewed from a knock on his head. Desperately, he clutched white knuckles upon his knife hilt, trying to keep a hold. His hand jerked, stabbing and slashing a scant few away just briefly enough to notice, outside of clear vision, that the door jarred open. Somehow, amid the battle, the wraith had kept them busy, providing Atrediae entry into the room. Making a choice, he dropped the knife and fetched his gun from an ankle holster. Without aiming, Bobby sent a bullet into the brainpan of the first dark one before the wraith seized the weapon and hooped like excited, jawing birds. When he looked up, he saw enough of Nysa's towering leg dropping down like a guillotine blade, bashing his head in a flurry of kicks. Weak and captured, there was nothing more Bobby could do.

Similarly, Sam found his efforts to be as helpful as an empty ballpoint pen, scratching away on a blank page. He undercut a kick to a darkling, sending it to domino on others advancing into the room. With a growl, he punched his iron through the throat of another. "Get off!"

In the maelstrom, Sam and Bobby had fought with every weapon they had and even went hand-to-hand and kick-to-kick. With the addition of the dark ones, the creature pandemonium rousted all safety, leaving Dean ripe of proverbial picking.

When Sam charged, again torn between helping himself, Bobby, or Dean, a new foe, Theron, blocked his attack and any decision. Instantly the haunting ones bowed and crumbled away like scurrying mice, giving the new arrival a reverence that made Sam seethe. With all the charm of snake venom, the creature flashed a glint of a smile as he sent a succinct punch to Sam's torso and then snapped a hard left to Sam's chin. A punch—then another – then another—fell until Theron's hands wetted with streaming blood.

Not easily beaten or inclined to surrender, Sam rolled to the side, avoiding Theron's leaping kick. Quickly launching to his feet and ignoring the fuzz pulling at his head, Sam summoned strength for a gracefully executed uppercut to creature's jaw.

Bleeding from the mouth, Theron swiped red liquid, flopping and flicking drops from his gnarly fingertips. His face decorated with disbelief and mingled hideously with seeping blood and his disfigured face. The evil bowed slightly in recognition of Sam's efforts, offering a new expression of mockery to hide rage.

"Sucks when someone fights back," Sam yelled, knowing he had hit a nerve and attempting to do the same with his knife.

He had hope to do enough damage to buy time to get to a gun tucked in his waistband, but the thrust proved too weak for significant damage. The blade thinly sliced Theron's cheek, but the move cost Sam a significant blow from the creature. The blowback allowed another jab to the face. Fumbling, Sam dizzily stumbled, knowing his weakened state cried to slip into unconsciousness. On cue, his legs buckled and his body flung backwards. Even crashing in a fall, the hunter in him hungered for fight. Deflecting his moves inside the gracelessness of the descent, he used the moment to camouflage the retrieval of a 45 packed with silver bullets. Before landing, he pumped two rounds straight for Theron's heart.

Faster than the bullets, the wraith screeched and clogged the air as the apparitions culled to take the slung for the dark thing. Rending the best of shots useless, three eager kids broke from the pack and spun Sam, trashing him like a revolving, flatten tire. Unprepared for such an unorthodox attack, Sam's back twisted counterclockwise as numerous scabrous rib bones snapped. To finish the job, Theron booted Sam's spine until the hunter screamed in pain, bending- doubling over like an under stuffed a rag doll. Fallen, Sam raises helpless fist as the wraith latched onto him, bashing at his head until all he could see was red from his seeping skull. Desperately, his eyelids battled, but only the gentle caress narrowed focus to his vision.

Nysa shoved a blood tainted lock to one side, intertwining a tuff of Sam's hair in her curious fingers. Her spindly hand wrapped around a single curl and fondled it in a way that made Sam buck in shame and unease. "Such another lovely one," She said and then turned her focus upon Dean.

"Our final answer waits," Theron said, motioning towards Dean.

"No," Sam muttered from his wraith prison, forced to watch the dark woman descend upon his helpless brother. He and Bobby were captured, snared, and pinned by the overwhelming number of wraiths without means to fight.

Idly, Nysa moved with all the wonder and amazement of a virgin experience. Reaching out to her beloved replacement, although temporary child, two ginger fingers stroke Dean's cheek, and instantly her touch broke him into a cold, sickened sweat. His impulse reaction rebuked at her toying with the adhesiveness of his mind. Dean hadn't fully registered the battle, but the shiver of her touch fluttered his eyes open. Disturbed as much as aroused by the acoustics of her voice, he protested like a spoiled brat disobeying, He gripped the curtain material, holding onto the tangible and railing against her control in a tantrum of groans.

"Hushabye," Nysa soothed.

"Time to die!" Theron completed.

"But he's still so sweet."

"Sweet, my ass," Dean muttered while he had the last moment of freewill, before the sheer rush of calculated control took over and before his mind evaporated. Dean forced an explosive chord of every thought he could muster from the smallest, meaningless thing to the largest life changing experience in effort to drown her voice. His temples pulsated as he tried to slow the throbbing of his mind by biting down, letting his own teeth inflict a serious wound in his mouth. He drew in a breath to scream and tasted the tang of coppery bitterness in the back of his throat. He trashed in defiance, only managing to rip open careful stitches away from his gut wound. However, the pain kept him momentarily reality bound.

"I'm home. Home. Home."

"Lying Bitch," Dean said, spewing a spray of blood.

Clearing spots of blood from the corner of Dean's mouth, Nysa relished in his hot, sweat drenched brow. She raised him up in her arms as his gut wound seeped blood, pooling on the curtain and dribbling on the floor.

"My little one. Pretty little son." She sang, rocking the struggling, weakened man in her arms. "I'll kill you!" Sam sputtered idle threats, trying to diffuse and goad the focus back to him.

With each word, Dean's mind tapered, winding down to a paper man cut in shreds- scattered bits. The voice amassed a coma shell of will and Dean squabbled between listening to Nysa or Sam.

"Don't struggle. Mama makes it all better."

"All better," He absently repeated. It would all be better. She promised after all. He let her voice slip inside his ears. Of course, she would make it better. Every rational conclusion screamed for him to get it over with and let her have him, but the few holdouts gathered to stop it.

"There, there."

"No," he mumbled in a way the word sounded like it had seven syllables, holding back the metamorphosis into her puppet.

"He's grown obstinate," Theron said.

"Boy is a boy," she replied.

Her voice crippled Dean and he knew he couldn't resist. He didn't have the strength to resist forever. After a few moments, he managed to break through the white sickened control, repressing the convoluted twists of her voice. He focused her breath- the smell of death. A gob of bile rose in his throat, and he swallowed, forcing it back to his rolling gut. Using the rancid taste to hold out, Dean branded her as just another –a painful reminder of the Winchester' trapped life. A flash filed him with bitterness. Living shouldn't be this hard. His mind whirled full force, looking back on the surreal way his family changed—broke.

"No longer alone," She said. "The blessed has to listen. Voices of the skeletons."

His head rang and his ears popped with the whispers that would eventually become a full-blown screams if he let them. Shivers of delight rolled down his spine, meeting the revulsion of his gut. One misstep- one falter- and everything- his last real family—was shot to hell. Narrowing in, he bore a gaze upon the man towering over Sam, instantly locking in hate. He imagined killing the dark thing and the mewling spirits that clung to him like stink of feet. The creatures had Sam and Bobby and he had to save them. Stop the voice. Stop her voice, but he didn't want it to stop. She promised comfort, something he hadn't felt in so long, actually never felt that he could recall.

Dean buried his head as far as he could in the wrapping as his hand burrowed to find a weapon- any weapon. Desperate fingers grazed inside the pocket of his jeans. Fumbling passed his phone, a crumpled receipt, a lighter, a wire— When Nysa hummed loudly, his inventory stopped and hitched.

"NO!" He spat, focusing on her grotesque smile.

At that moment, he formed a plan of primal survival instincts. Dominated in that brief moment by his own will, a reckless impromptu idea took life. It had been a bad day for Dean's novel and breakneck approaches and this one was quite a bullshit masterpiece, but it was his thought. By damned, he owned it.

"No more. No more." She hummed, giving him a taunting, sultry look as a twang of surrender commanded upon her voice.

"Please," Dean muttered.

"Come home. Come home."

Another word died on Dean's lips before it formed. The seat of his brow glistened with captured sweat driblets, shining like diamond in effort to keep his plan in motion and to keep her faux happiness at bay. His hands wiggled to his ears, clasping a seal to his mind. She was winning and didn't care how she mental tore at him. When his seal appeared to fail, he knotted the curtain tighter about his head, sheathing it tightly until it stretched out his features. With a pitiful, final grasp, Dean's hands stopped moving at the nape of curtain.

When her call reached a zenith, one that would befall even the most innocent or hardened, Dean stared up as if smitten and fractured to her call. Abruptly, his movements slackened and he slumped in Nysa's arm.

"That's my little man."

Sam bellowed, "Whatever you want – leave him alone."

"What is ours."

"Ours. Ours!"

Sam rallied, pushing against his captors. His limbs solidified, hating the thing that had stolen his brother. "I swear—"

Swear?" Theron said almost indistinguishable faked laugh.

"Swear! Beware!" Some faceless ones answered.

"Precious, precious little one. Found a final son," Nysa sang, stroking Dean oddly.

"Stop the sniveling." Theron chastised the woman, giving her a slap reminder of the pecking order. "He's a hellion tainted by the dark before."

"Not this one. He lived." She eyed Dean like a glimpsed, cloaked treasure. "He's special."

"Filthy child who must die. The twice-blessed heathen. If I had known what he was then--"

"Special. He's special." She slapped Theron's hands away, scolding. "My pretty one."

"Sister, sister. Deluded wisher. Think of where to start. The meat of the dark?" Theron taunted.

She nodded her head in confused protest, but her brother drove the point, literally gouging a fist in the blood spot of the curtain. He bore inward, until Dean squeaked a grunt. Then, taking his coated fingers away, he traced Nysa's lips. She drew the fingers in, sucking the digits dry. The other Atrediae howled and culled in wait for the final dinner bell.

"No more will we be mongrel to an uncaring master. We have the promise."

"The masters are dead. Gone and lost their heads." Nysa tuned out.

Bobby and Sam puzzled. Obviously, this hunt was more than revenge or a hankering for a meal. Something else, like always, had a hand in this.

Bobby demanded, "Why don't you just call in your master or is he too much of a—"

Theron crossed, stomping with fury the floor rumbled. In an instant, he snatched Sam's arm, twisting and grinding until it snapped in two cracking breaks.

"God help me, I'll Kill you."Bobby said, unable to hold his head up.

"GOD! God's so convenient to blame and praise. He didn't even blink when he created us- called us a gift."

Neither Sam nor Bobby had time to shock at Theron's claim.

"Gift gone. Stole the son. Little welting flowers. Devil deal! Devil Deal." Nysa cried, rocked, and stroked Dean.

"God abandoned his children- snuck out the back door and let us fall."

"You fall. We all fall!" Monster to us all." Mocking children sang.

"Cease!" Theron ordered them to silence.

"You're the monster." Bobby spitted. "You –all of you –opened the path to what you are!"

"And I can close it."

"Who saw the Devil die? I said the naughty little fly, with my little eye, I saw him die." She waved an exaggerated finger at Sam.

"You will return to me, sister. Be what you once were. After all our suffering, we shall return to what is ours."

"Who killed the holy king? I said the sweet sparrow, with my bow and arrow." Planting a tender kiss to Dean's forehead, she smiled.

"Stop that racket!" Theron demanded before turning his attention to the horde. "Brother Bones, the new one promises the throne." His coy voice doused in baneful delight.

"Who has control? I, said the mole, take the man of twice blessed soul."

"All the ancient ones are dead and we have final favor with the new rising. I'm the only damn god you need now."

* * *

**Author's note: This turned out longer than I planned, chapter-wise, story-wise, plot-wise, and time-wise. Thanks to those who stuck with this and I hope the complex nature isn't too bogged down or too sketchy to make sense. Good news: The story only has a few chapters left.**


	17. Dawn of the Dead

**Author's note: Hola! I had planned on wrapping this up in a few really long chapters, but for love of pete my life has gotten hectic! So, if you will bear with me, I will break the sections up just a bit. At least this way, I can give you something faster instead of waiting to map out the entire last battle and wrap up before you get progress.**

* * *

For the next brief seconds, the gravity of Theron's words calloused hard inside of Sam beyond any of the physical pain. For whatever ungodly reason, he and Dean, and by default anyone close to them, were marked- would always be marked. If not tagged by some great destiny or prophecy, by the fear of what living Winchesters could do –could become –attracted evil to them. Now, here again, they faced another variation of the Winchester roach motel. He assumed, in the strangest of ways, there was flattery in that knowledge. He long ago realized that even if they ran, some demon, monster, or thing would seek to destroy them. Was this all just the scrambling to rebuild an empire that the Winchesters paid dearly to stop? Alternatively, was it simply bragging rights for someone to claim an end to the Winchester line?

"Ah, the hopelessness does not escape you." Theron said.

"You're wrong about that!"Sam yelled, lunging, grinding, and struggling against the many binding arms of his captors.

"He is the abomination that should not have been."

For all his worth, Sam stifled a slight gasp at the idea of Dean being labeled a monster. Unfortunately, the target hit too close to his personal home. Sam, in many ways, would always feel the power of that demonic part of him. The matching shoe of that evil would never –could never fit Dean.

Theron made a sudden move for Sam, but Bobby quickly diverted the creature's attention by flying a head butt backwards and managing to move an inch before his instant recapture. "Damn monster! Look who's talkin!" Bobby bellowed.

With a noncommittal smirk, the dark man wordlessly answered by unleashing the mindless wraith followers. A swirl of movement blurred as a rushed throng of creatures and specters mauled Bobby and Sam, herding them from the safety of their makeshift sanctuary. Each lost sight of the other, and in their worse fear, they lost sight of Dean. Not sure of their direction in the flock of hands, the madness rudely shoved and dragged them into main foyer. Then once they were on display in the main lobby, the creatures drove the hunters to their knees. Bobby and Sam slammed hard against the check-in registry on the main floor. From every angle, the starved dark ones and the unearthly children ensnared around them.

"Arg." Sam offered softly, taking in that neither Dean nor Theron had moved with them. "Where is he!?"

"Don't cry about fallen friends," Nysa strutted curiously, staring at the prisoners like a collection in the menagerie.

"Dean's not just my friend!"

"I'll keep him."

"Damned you will!" Bobby bellowed.

Her arms nestled in a cradle position rocking an imaginary child and cooing incoherent nonsense syllables in a foreign tongue.

"He's my brother. Real blood."

"Blood for blood," she sang.

"Don't bother. Damn fool of a woman's forgotten what it's like. Ain't no reasoning left for it," Bobby said, and then matched a stare into her vacant eyes. "You don't know what that means, do ya?"

"Love. My love. I keep them all. Find all the pretty for me. My God gives me my sweet ones. Payment for first lost."

"You're wrong, you know. He's not god, certainly not my god," Bobby stalled, time was the sole ally on their side. In a scant time, the sunrise would come. Fifteen minutes stood as the barrier to the hunters winning. No one liked 60-2 gambles of certain death. Instantly, he counted the Atreidae —roughly, 12-2 odds at sun up, but that was a hellva lot better than the countless numbers of this moment. For now, the dead sky might as well be black without the sun.

"Would a god murder your real son the way he did?" Bobby asked.

"My brother not alone on the throne."

"He's just a weak monster who betrayed those closest to him. My family may be warped, but we've kept out of your mindless devotion to nothing better than a killer."

"Do not say such hateful things." Nysa sang, circling Sam and tilting her head.

"Why Not! Lady you've flipped your lid," Bobby said, and then emphatically glared. "Several times from the looks and sounds of it. For what! To protect a brother who butchered your boy? Now, you want to take mine. "

"My precious new son."

"No. My brother. Your son's dead!"

"No, no. Gift forever in immortal treasure." As she called a gaunt wraith beckoned to her. "Always with me with love. He will love the blessed one now."

"That's not life," Sam screamed. "A true mother would help us."

"I am helping, my children."

"Mother. Will I have a new brother soon?"

"That's what's left of your youngin'?" Bobby asked surprised.

"Special, so special. My first – and then the many."

"He's not. That thing ain't your kin no more."

"Do you know what wraiths even are?" Sam demanded, eyeing the diminishing dark outside, "That last memory –sadness collapses into a vicious, drifting piece of what the person was. Something made to walk for amusement."

"Don't pretend it don't eat at ya. Momma's don't leave their little ones alone."

"It pecks away at you – that darkness – until you until you would do anything- betray anyone. God help me, but I know about that. You have to see that," Sam begged. "I almost lost everything important to me, even myself. Anger. Pain."

"I am not angry. You envy the first. Our chosen!" Leaving the conversation behind, Nysa ascended the stairs like a queen displaying a prideful, endless bridal train.

"You deserved to lose your real son!" Sam goaded, yet his voice hushed when a loud thud echoed from the safe house room.

"Dean?"

Beyond reason, Sam expected to see Dean hurl the missing darkling out of the room door, and imagined the cocky grin on his brother's face. Rather, he hoped the thumping sound foretold that. Finally, the room grew still, and then just as quickly a fleshy scraping sound, slick with the lubrication of a soppy liquid slithered and sloshed along with the creaks of the floorboards. The squish drew nearer until Sam spied his brother's stagnant, appearing dead body, which tangled in odd shapes inside the bloodstained curtain.

Dragging Dean along the floor, Theron heaved the beaten man like an offered package. The darkling leader sauntered out of the room and then up the stairs, wearing platitudes of wild freedom and complete control about his stature, taking his time to cross gloriously in view of his followers. With each step, the body jarred in a bounce, leaving a blood trail on the steps until Theron showboated his inert, deaden prize upon the first landing like a sacrifice upon an altar. The thing, a caliginous preacher, threw up his arms to incite his deadly flock.

Once offered, the Atreidae moved in a receiving line as if they were waiting heaping bowls at a soup kitchen –waiting for ladles full of Dean. In return, the children clattered Sam and Bobby's weapons as a bid for the blue ribbon cow at slaughter. Each mewling thing, fondled over the prizes, stacking them at the base of the stairs, waiting for the dark master to tender approval and praise.

"Trinket and toys for all good little boys." Theron said as the wraith cheered. "Brothers we share the bones. The last son will rightly fall last."

Pulling Dean to her, Nysa crumpled over him, mewling as she rocked.

"Sister," he calmly mouthed, kneeling in close to her ear. "His honor belongs to you. Once again, you will conceive the lineage of our race –rebuild our line and return to what is rightfully ours." His lips clamped on hers in a way that instantly repulsed Bobby and Sam to turn a pale shade of green.

"Going home?"

"Yes. His end is our finale –our beginning. His blood for the return of ours." He fondled her hair before he returned to the base of the stairs.

"You shall go first," he offered, showing Sam and Bobby as appetizers.

"I swear—" Sam began.

Without a second dinner notice, the darklings gathered, pooling near Sam and Bobby, ready for the immediate, gnawing hunger to end. At the forefront, the ghostly children scrambled about Sam, who was nothing more than the show for the unsightly specters and the TV dinner for the Atreidae. As Sam braced for a deadly onslaught, Theron bore down on him with a jagged and cragged nailed hand, digging just under Sam's ribcage, drilling at the first arc of bone, and scrapping at the skin until a ravaged pit bore into Sam's skin. The Atrediae rallied, screaming in gleeish, strange sounds, yet Sam refused to give the satisfaction of a scream. A thin strip of flesh ripped when the darkling extracted the digit. Unflinching, he stared as Theron gobbled a fresh sliver of bloody skin.

"Not bad for a second."

"I hope you choke on it!" When Sam rallied several kicks and struggles, he caught a glimpse of his listless brother, who sucked in a harsh breath. Dean's head wobbled, glaring lazy eyes towards Sam. A vanilla expression softened the eldest's angular features, almost describable as begging. Yet, for a brief instant, some spark of dogged determination cut into Dean's jaw line. Not even hope could have caused Sam to imagine it. Before his next rally against Theron's torture, he once again noticed a subtle fluctuation in his brother's features.


	18. Turntable

Similarly, the female Atreidae sensed the piercing alter inside of Dean, and she reacted instantly. Her lips parted with a breathy, low murmur, pulling her voice to tame the impossible drive of the man she balanced in the barest of embraces. When the man lulled, her song softened along with the grip on her claimed son.

As before, the hunter wobbled, sputtering nonsensical sounds between uneasy breaths. When Dean lapsed into the pinnacle of calm, he sharply opened peridot eyes to glare at the female dark thing. That one instant, one glance, was all the warning he afforded. Abruptly, he morphed from the dull submission, seemingly engrossed by the woman, into a panicked fury, jerking up in a curve with his body. Dean, the exploding human time bomb, unleashed thrusting legs upward, rending from her grasp and unwrapping from the soaked tapestry. With a strangled cry, he landed the toe of his boot square upon her jaw. More with surprise than force, he knocked her backwards along the start of the second level of stairway.

Thrashing uncoordinated, he tossed his wreaked body, fueled only with a robust temper to fight. This desperation spurred into a sloppy and hasty launch off the edge of the landing. If he intended an attack of skill and grace, the evidence didn't reflect in his movements. With first step, a collapsing fall at the knee, he tumbled down in a disjointed slide the length of three steps before he spun out. Thrash. Bounce. Crumble. Snap. Quickly tucking his appendages tight to his torso, Dean funneled like a demented wheel, whapping upon each angular step. Despite lack of control, he managed to undercut the feet of a few wraith and Atreidae that blocked his downward spiral. Madly his body warped and turned, paining with each erratic ricochet. Snap. Crack. Splat. Thorny wooden structures pounded his body, seeming to be sharper than a simple staircase should. Shrieking pain raped every muscle until he ceased the spin and lapsed into a crumpled heap at the bottom.

Struggling, he teetered to a jellylike crawl, scooting a bare inch before injury wore him down. As a sharp, blinding spasm radiated in his upper thigh and descended up his spine, he spread face down against the floor. A strange thickness grappled his mind until his body weighed a ton.

Whether by pain or the Atreidae influence, his vision faded except for the bare traces of the frightening creatures' movements. His mind clutched desperately, ordering his resistance to hold out for just a bit longer. He leaned heavily on his rightly kneecap, wobbling like a frightened snake, ready to strike, but just as likely to flee. The knee buckled and swayed almost appearing to be afraid to obey his commands.

"Got to be an easier way." He sputtered after pressing a palm to the floor for support. At this very moment, 'Fly by pants Plan B' felt like a craptacular idea. Who was he kidding? The tuck and roll down the stairs wasn't even a thought in his most recent plan. At best, he hurt himself and pissed the dark bastards off even more.

He just might have cut himself a measure of slack if he were aware that his haphazard escape plan provided Bobby and Sam a window to strike back at the creatures. Sam kicked an equally surprised Theron with a heel, connecting firmly with flesh and bone and eliciting a stout grunt from his assailant.

As he called on his followers, the dark one demanded, "Cause them great pain!"

Using Dean's distraction to break the fight open, Sam ignited as a fuse sparked to life. At this close range, he easily lashed out at several, twisting and striking at anything in arm or leg reach. Bobby attempted the same close-action battle amid a flock of opponents.

"Damn, kid!" Bobby remarked with pride as he punched himself free from his captor.

Instantly, Sam understood the praise for Dean, and really that was all that needed to be said. Holding his injured arm close to his torso, Sam executed a classic flying kick straight at an approaching darkling and still managed to punch another with a glancing blow. The first landed in an emphatic crash, while the second stumbled. Using the stumbler as a springboard, Sam whipped upon another, knocked that creature flat to his belly, and then kicked the thing into the floor hole that Dean almost toppled through when they arrived.

Without time to celebrate the small victory, Sam dove for the weapon stash near the staircase and found a wraith blockade denied his access. Cut off from the minuscule arsenal, Sam plunged head long into a tarnished, wooden chair. The impact fractured the seat into pieces, creating temporary weapons, shrapnel stakes, until he could get to more substantial weapons.

He wielded the stick masterfully, repeatedly stabbing an Atreidae who appeared from nowhere, and then Sam lunged at one holding onto Bobby. Simultaneously, he gouged the weapon into a stomach and kicked another pointy stake towards Bobby's direction. Once the weapon clasped firmly into his friends grasp, both nodded silent commands to get to Dean ASAP, yet the creatures came at them as if they manufactured themselves from every nook of the Crumbpecker's Inn. Unsure of which direction the attack could come, they spun to cover as much ground as possible while several darklings descended upon them from all sides.

When the slimmest of openings cleared on Bobby's left, he made a play for a cover position near Dean; however, Nysa had already recovered and pounced down the staircase after the fallen hunter. Without thought, Bobby rushed her and gouged a hefty stab to her side, ripping out a clearly visible opening in her guts. In an almost unseen reaction, Nysa threw an elbow into Bobby's abdomen and executed a twisting move to his ribs, which sent him to the floor. His eyes darted in surprise of her speed and resilience.

Beyond any sense of time, she flew upon him, aiming to bite out his throat. The gnashing woman grazed a knick upon Bobby's neck. He barely staved off the deathly nibbled, keeping his jugular intact, but more of the horde collapsed upon him. With the minimal movement of her finger, she called forth the wraith to strengthen her attack. Blindly, he stabbed and lodged the stake just under one's shoulder blade, ending with a jab through the throat another's throat. He kicked the carcass in between his neck and Nysa's terrifying jaws, but she held strong tossing her brethren's torso to the side.

The same only song and dance of the underdogs was getting old damn fast. One thing for certain, Bobby hated being on the mongrel side of things. And, with one quick glance, he knew, just like him that Sam fared no better and began to suffer being outmatched once again.

Curiously, and for the first time, Nysa pondered why these weak ones kept fighting a predestined, lost war. Full of peculiar confusion, her hand ascended and on the path back, she walloped Bobby's head until his moves slowed. With one last punch, she surprisingly left him to be taken by the others as she scrutinized the pathetic inferior battle waged by two unclaimed ones. Even her chosen son only managed to prolong his pain for himself and his friends

"Do you wish to die in agony?" she asked Bobby.

For all his cloudiness, Dean heard the clarity of Nysa's voice, but more importantly, he latched on the warning of Bobby's death. Unable to see beyond muddy shapes, he crawled, shoving his limbs to find strength enough, even if it took the last drop of his life and energy to do it. In the vaguest of recollection, he remembered after his fall that Bobby used his blood as a weapon. Without specific knowledge of how it worked, he jutted a hand to the tenderest spot of his abdomen. His flesh opened easily –too easily—with gentle probing and the blood welled, sopping through his clothes to coat his fingers and palm.

While an acute, agonizing pain split down his side, he flopped haphazardly upon his backside. His eyes whipped about like an ever-spinning ball on a psycho roulette wheel. As he courted unconsciousness, at once, the moving shadow of Theron fell upon him. His semi-conscious mind vibrated urgency upon his nerves, as he dimly spied the darkling swarm down like an angel of death drawn to the scent of death.

Instinctively, Dean lashed out at the looming shape, but the creature descended close enough already to inflict serious damage. Dean's fist went wide, suffering the expected pain that blossomed until the white agony mingled with the black void in his head. The creature latched upon him when that punch missed a bull's-eye by a mile.

"Hated child."

Theron slowly dragged a fingertip and craggy claw just under Dean's collarbone to create a serrated wound, not even acknowledging the victim's damnation mutter for the torment and the creature's existence. Searching greedily, rough hands groped the hunter's increasingly shaky form. As his last resort, Dean seized bloody-handed grip on the thing, letting his red hold connect upon the shadowy thing and waited for a favorable response.

"You possess not the word curse to harm me," Theron said, drawing close enough for foul breath to moisten Dean's face. "Your blood is no longer tainted by the old one's song."

"Get outta my face," Dean grunted more than said.

Digging at the fold of his blue jean pocket and sliding out a pocketknife, not large enough to kill, but enough to incapacitate with luck and skill. Dean flicked his thumb to open the simple blade. Pushing beyond the tangled mess of his mind, he drove the metal, thin as a willow leaf, until it embedded into disturbed tissue. His hand swamped in the warm, thick blood dribbling down the small handle. Gliding with the slick fluid, he unsteadily carved downwards, nicking a modest sum of damaged flesh inside the creature's belly until his strength sucked dry by the effort. Dean even managed a madcap smile before he went loose with numbness, blood loss, and exhaustion.

"You were well chosen. She has great cause to fear you."

Focusing on the intruding object, Theron laughed in a way that sounded a bit like pity had carnal perversity not been chiseled on his dark expression. He stepped back a few paces, and yanked the slender blade from his gut, tossing it aside as if he only removed an annoying bee stinger. He flung the knife with a clatter nest to Dean, who managed to respond with a mewling sound just before Theron laced hands about the hunter's ribcage and hoisted him in the air.

"Want to try another hand?" The vendetta ripped in his voice. "Such a determined line."

Gasping for breath, Dean dangled. When he thought his ribs crushed and pulverized to dust, the creature flung and dropped him like a sack of rocks. Bang! He smacked with a piercing crack and slumped in a disheveled and senseless pile upon the floor. A blood arc splattered across the walls like an abstract painter's ode to death. More red pooled beneath him in a sudden gush of winter. The icy caresses shoved inside every space in his body hard enough to kill even his waves of pain. Stained by the hands of the death with his own lifeblood, he drained away drip by drip. Then, suddenly, his own blood contained no warmth at all, as if the fire inside of him soaked into this place like a forgotten history to leave him frozen in memorial.


	19. Child Support

**Then… Hamelin, Iowa - September 1990**

The diminished planes of John's molded statically hollow as if a whirling vortex sunk in at his cheeks and jaw line. Heavily, his betraying eyelids fell, crashing him into self-inflicted brainwashing guilt. He sensed the nervous tapping of a gun against his leg, thudding a taunt up into his hand. Without thought, his fingers wrapped around the handle, even though nothing was there--no real gun and no real anything, except the weight of responsibility crushing at his mind. Despite the hallucination nature of the pistol, the weight –the coldness – of it plagued him as it had since Harvelle's death—no murder, he corrected. Contrary to his will, the image of his friend's corpse or what was left—sprang forth to his mind's eye.

His heart slithered upwards pounding in his throat as hot and teasing as the fictional weapon's sensation in his fingers. Remorse adrenaline sent the impulse to squeeze upon the trigger. There was no way to stop it. He dwelled on it, looking for that one mistake that led to unforgivable actions. Rationalizations and lies aside, there was no way around it; he killed a friend. He'd live with it; die with it, and surely burn in hell for it.

"Ha! Dean's too slow," Sam said. His voice muffled as if far of in a cavern.

"Dude!"

Moreover, like always, John's one redeeming quality, there was Dean—his rescued son. He loved Sam just as much as his eldest, but Dean just understood better. Opening to his children from his grotesque, self-purgatory, John focused back to the reality of the two-bit, rundown motel. When he shifted his gaze upon Dean, John nearly laughed, yet managed to catch the sound only emitting the tiniest of amused snorts. The sight settled the jumpiest of his nerves to an uneasy peace.

"Get out of there!" The eldest wore exasperation on his frame while he slithered on the floor, poking an arm under the couch to capture Sam.

"Sam's not here!" A squeaky voice eeked from the underside of a busted futon, a foot kicking at the rigid upholstery of the draping mattress pad.

"Man, either you're under there or we have some mutant termites."

"Grr! I'm a mutant term—What's a termite?" Sam popped his head out enough to tilt inquisitive eyes at his older brother, only to shift back into the safety before Dean could attempt capture.

"Ugh. Annoying bugs. Like you! Don't you know anything?" Dean grumbled. "You need to pay more attention in school cause I can't teach you everything."

Fully stretching his arm under the futon frame, he snatched one grubby sneaker mid kick, tugging and sliding the boy out to expose a leg up to a scrawny knee. After another enormous jerk, the shoe dislodged, thanking Dean for the effort with a dirty sneaker, a hasty fall, and smack to his bottom on the floor. Free, the exposed, sockless foot wobbled and slipped back to cover. Scooting further, Sam pushed in the dark recess between the couch's springy underbelly and the floor.

"No fair! That's my favorite one!"

"How can you tell? Is it the cleaner one?" Dean muttered, staring at the earth-encrusted shoe in his hand, huffing in the ridiculousness of it before he thudded it on the floor. ""Mud!" He grumbled.

"I like puddles."

"Yeah, I heard. Are you done now?" Dean asked, disheartened.

"No!"

"Come on. I'll read you a story? Cookie? Anything!"

From an armchair, John fixed a diligent stare on Dean and the wild chase. "You're not giving in the towel, yet?"

"No, sir. Never." Dean practically saluted with words.

"Good boy."

Merely a few days had passed since the hospital released Dean, yet, somehow, his son amazed him. After the ordeal, the boy picked up the usual routine chores as if nothing had happened. He prided over the fact Dean wasn't even fazed by monster after monster springing up get a piece of the Winchesters, when it damn near killed John with the enormous mantle of it.

"No, sir!" Sam mocked.

"Sam Winchester!" John barked, iron faced, disapproving of Sam's mimicry and belittling of the chain of command. The kid definitely needed to learn his place and by John's estimation, Sam had more than come of age. After all, Dean dealt with more at an even younger age. Dean was okay. Dean understood. Everyone –Bobby and Caleb were wrong, That boy understood the life- the job. It was high time Sam began to tow the line too. "You best obey!"

Taking a heavy step, a peculiar, fidgety exhaustion drained Dean until a shaky hand balanced on the futon. With a long pause and a deep breath, he tested another step.

Dumbstruck, John damned his blindness. He'd missed something important. Watching each of his son's labored step, John leaned forward ready to bound, somehow to make the injury go away. However, what could he do? He couldn't find the words anymore to make evil go away or even protect his own children. He questioned the boy's health, wondering if his son would fall asleep mid step. Could he lose him so easily? Under his own watchful eye, Dean hurt.

"That's okay, Dad. I got Sam," Dean said, squarely turning to his father. "He's my responsibility."

"You think that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Phbbbbbtttttt! Dean farted!" Sam announced after blowing a raspberry and tossed his other shoe, landing it squarely in Dean stomach.

Just as Dean huffed in frustration, a streak of tiny fury slipped and zipped around him. Sam's hair tauntingly waved as he rushed, causing a gust of wind. "TAG!"

"Sammy, please."

Giving Dean a vigorous workout before the entrapment of bedtime, Sam belted a high-pitched screech. The war hoop continued as the boy pushed passed a barricade of chairs, jumping over and crawling in a space too tight for Dean to reach.

John had a flash of pride at Sam's resourcefulness equal to the pride in Dean's persistence.

"Please?"

"Don't wanna go. You just got here!" He barnstormed from the space, jumped on the couch like a trampoline, and dived like a bomber. "I'm a great big eagle," Sam said, trying on the animals' name like a pair of clean shoes, deciding he much preferred the name Eagle to plain old name Sam. "Swooping down on all the mice, and, uh, rat, and weasels!"

With a hasty flop, Dean crumbled to the floor, crossing his legs in a pretzel to sit on his ankles. A weak hand slumped to his cheek, resting his heavy and annoyed noggin on it. With the most pathetic of groans, his face wore crestfallen and wretchedness like an old man wore earned wrinkles.

"Dean?" Sam stopped running and curiously approached, staring at his brother with worry. "Sick?"

Dean lifted his head, standing proudly. Now wasn't the time to be weak. He'd been strong this far, even managed to fool his father and brother. "I'm Fine."

"I'm not stupid."

"I know. But, I'm always fine. Right?"

"I guess, but don't just say that. "

"I got to be okay. It's what you say, even when you don't want to," Dean said. "We have to be okay, do you understand?"

"No!"

"It's alright. Just do me a favor and go to bed now. I promise, I'm better than okay."

Allowing Dean to get closer, Sam clung to his brother's waist, buried a running nose into Dean's sleeve, and wiped the snot clean. "I'm sorry. Sorry."

"Take it easy. You're not that bad. Well, today you're not that bad." He dragged Sam closer to the motel bed before Sam had a change of mind and tactics."

"I hate bedtime."

"Yeah, yeah. Figured that one out a long time ago." Dean wiped several beads of sweat from his brow with the back of his free hand.

That small movement spoke volumes. No matter how John wished for Dean's fatigue to be a ruse to get Sam to listen, it wasn't. Dean's energy had not yet fully returned and façade the kid had been wearing cracked under the pressure of an overactive little brother. His eldest wore the pretend wellness too convincingly.

"D-Dean?"

"Sir?"

"I need a situation status rep," John demanded. "A true one."

"Sir? Everything's in order."

"Sir!" Sam mimicked.

"Dude. Stop that," Dean bellowed, playing off his fatigue. "You'll learn what that means one day. And, for the record, eagles soar, but weasels don't get sucked into airplane engines. You seriously need to study and listen more!"

"Ewww! I don't like to study. I like it when we figure it out together. Hey, do eagles get chopped up like our Spam in the airplanes?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess. Sure."

"Ewwwww! That's gross like blender spew shakes you made us! "

Wobbly, Dean jittered as he lifted Sam uneasily upon the mattress to finally getting the kid settled in for the night.

"Spin….burr…..splat… gross!"

"Oh," Dean said as if remembering, "Don't think about sticking anything in a blender! 'Kay?"

Sam offered a defeated look. But then, the boy looked entirely too hopeful.

"Not even in the name of science, cartoons, or mankind."

"Awww."

Within a second, Sam stretched out, yawning as he thought on how they got Eagles in such a small can, or for that matter, how they got a bird to sit still long enough to get in a blender. When Dean pulled at the covers, he groaned.

"Now what?"

"Toy check?"

Begrudgingly, Dean scooped around, not finding a single plastic bobble in the bed.

"Better? I've got more important things to take care of," Dean started before John boosted him on the bed too.

"Uh, Dad? Uh, what gives? Don't we have a job tonight?"

"No. Tonight, I have to meet a friend. Got to explain some things to people in desperate need and hurt," In that instant, John flashed Harvelle again in his thoughts. "No job, just being a man. Remember that. It's important. "

"Okay, Dad," Dean muttered curiously, knowing something bad happened on the last job. He didn't remember much beyond the bakery and waking up with his family, but he disappointed his father in extraordinary way. In that hospital, surrounded by the hunters he admired, none of them treated him like an equal. He was a child, patted like a boy sent to bed with milk and cookies. John wouldn't even as much as brag about what evil the group took down. Those war stories were all he had. "I did something wrong."

"Boy, you—"

"Ohhh, uh-oh, he got fired?" Sam asked. "If you got fired, then where will we go? Who will take care of me and Dean?"

"Stop fussing 'bout that. I'll have my job for a long, long time. Forever maybe and it's gonna one day fall to both of you."

"It won't! "

"God, I sure hope not."

"I'm going to be an astronaut! Or a puppy."

"You can't be a puppy," Dean said.

"Why not? You told me a lady turned straw into gold in that cartoon."

"That's not real."

"Dad. Can you turn me into a puppy?"

"Not in this lifetime."

"You're so adopted!"

"Coop and I will jump you and lick your face."

"You think about lickin' me I'll punch your face." Dean responded. "Coop's not coming—"

Growing quiet, Dean sucked in a hasty breath. When Caleb told him Coop had died, He had brushed it off. However, he couldn't stop the hitch in his voice that day. As surreal as that seemed, the usually boisterous Caleb grabbed him, swooped him in an arm, and hugged Dean until the air felt thin. It was quiet. No jokes. No sarcasm. No ridicule. It was sincere. The fault of Coop's death fell squarely on him, but Caleb comforted him. He understood none of this.

"Coop's going to be too busy to hang out anymore.

"I did it," Dean whispered to no one in particular.

"But we promise not to howl cause Dean's going to start a rock band."

"Oh, I don't doubt that," John managed a slight chuckle as he spoke. "Bed! Both of you."

"Good. Dean tuck me in cause Dad doesn't do it right. Horrible! Bobby did bad—"

"I think I should have just tied you down and been done with it." John said.

Playfully, Sam wagged his tongue in a spectacular raspberry in a stealthy attempt to cover the break out of a toy ring from his pocket, jammed the ring on his finder, and stashed his hand suspiciously under the covers.

"I saw that," Dean said weakly, feeling a smidge of pressure lift.

"What? Did it make you-- mad?"

"Nah. Just normal, really."

"Not even a little mad?"

In a flicker, Sam yanked on Dean's arm, toppling him closer. In a craving for the nightly ritual, Sam drew back his brother's hand, forcing torturous tickles to his own belly. Unleashing bounteous laughter, Sam squirmed and jittered until he stopped to give Dean the most serious of looks. This time, without a prompt for the flattery, he declared, "Dean's way cool."

"Cheesy jerk, you're hopeless! You and mom and that laugh. Gak!"

As the laughter continued, summer exploded inside the depths of Dean's bones, radiating to rest on the corners of his mouth. He smiled, thinking how wondrous it was to find his mother's laugh again. It wasn't lost. Sammy stole it. His heart sank, not in envy, but instantly felt the stabbing regret of Mary's death. No matter how foolish, he mourned something as trivial as an oddball laugh with the broadest of smiles. Was that normal? Then, he withdrew. He'd never been anything but abnormal.

"I do?" Sam asked.

To that, Dean said nothing. For as much as he panged for his mother, he equally realized he had just broached the forbidden, "never to be discussed" mother topic. He couldn't fathom how his mind slipped so easily to break the foremost of his father's rules. Failing his dad's and his own high expectations, he drew inward. When he shook as if scared, appearing skinner and older than ever, he braced and dared a glance at John. Now the enormous weight of his words fell on him as looming as his father's stone gaze towered down upon him.

Without thinking about it, John replied, "Yeah. You always did."

"Ooooohhhh! What did Dean get?"

"Better question is what didn't you boys get from her? Good thing, too. Afraid I had little to offer in inheritance to you."

Of course, it hurt worse because it was the bare truth. He supposed, in some way, he had horded everything he could about Mary, locking up everything until there was little left for the boys to idolize. Leave it to Dean to keep him honest. If he spoke completely honestly, he'd admit he was a poor surrogate for her role in raising the boys. Hell, he was a poor surrogate for the man he once was. He had reasons to fight- her memory and the children that grew out of their love. Perhaps, the boys needed her still, even in the slightest of ways.

"How about we don't worry about that now. I thought I told both you daredevils to go on to bed?"John said, combing through Dean's hair with gentle hands. "You'd be asleep by now if you stopped the chatter."

Instantly, the eldest smiled openly again in a way that he had not in ages before worry line stole away the boy's brief happiness. "Something's wrong?"

"Nothing." It was, after all, the right thing to say. Whether it was true or not, it was the right thing. Dean just taught him that much. "Just thinking about work."

"No work! You said Dean could—"

"He's staying here tonight," John said.

"No, I'm not!"

"Good. No more work with you anymore."

"Hold on a second there, Commander Sammy, I said not tonight. Who else is going to be our chief, cook, and bottle washer if he--?" John asked.

"He can just be Dean." Sam answered, befuddled by John's question.

"Sure, bud. That he can."

Unconsciously, Sam scratched his arm making a red welt, not really itching but trying to understand things he thought he should understand. In the end, he decided the best course of action was simply to grab a hold on Dean, cuddling like a leech. Sam muttered something under his breath, and Dean strained to hear.

"Ahhh, do you have to be so annoying?" Dean protested, yet putting a willing arm around his brother. "You're totally bent, Sammy. Totally bent."

"I don't want you to work with Dad."

"I think we all caught that," John offered.

"Work made you sick," Sam continued his protest, gripping a tighter hold around his big brother. "You're too little."

"I am not!"

"You're both young, but I got a feeling you'll make it just fine though."

"Make what? Fixing cars and stuff? How do you make—"

"Dude, you are so mouthy. Cute won't work on anyone forever either, so give that up right now. You better remember that I like working with Dad. It's the best job--"

"And he does just fine," John offered flatly.

Even without the tainted view of Sam's innocence, John questioned the same. Something always lurked and targeted the boys. Dean had been kidnapped a year earlier by a demon and last winter both boys were targeted by a defunct priest who tried to bury them alive. All along John wondered what he had done to lose Mary, now he wasn't so sure the boys weren't the real targets. Had she given her life for them? God knows he would do the same. Too much coincidence was not coincidence in his book. Kids equal easy targets, but so much evil gravitated to his children—came for his sons. There was surely a damnable reason why, and he bet the yellow-eyed bastard had all those answers.

"Dad! You're scaring me!" Dean yelled, interrupting John's thoughts.

"I'm fine- yeah- fine. Just got to see someone and swallow down what I've done."

"Whatcha do?" Sam asked

"Nothing. You never do anything wrong," Dean said.

"I don't? " John said with an austere look on his face. "Hmm. Guess I don't have your eyes for things, tiger."

"Stop it. Stop freakin' me out!"

"I'm not trying to."

Only then did John realize Dean's pride wouldn't let this one go. Sick, tired, even self-preservation came last in his son's book. Being a burden would destroy the boy more than any blade, claw, or tooth. Dean would likely use his own severed arm to beat a monster senseless if the situation arose.

"Damn, you're a determined little—I—I need you fresh for the next one. Tactical decision. Nothing else. Got it?"

"You know I'll keep you covered. I have to. I want to."

"Don't need backup this time. Those are the orders. You're here with Sam this round. Alright?"

"What's wrong with Daddy?" Sam asked Dean.

"Nothing. I'm okay. Listen boys, sometimes things happen- you do things- things you never imagined- fears- loss. You never thought could happen that way. Sometimes your choices never let you live them down. Damn things haunt you. Sad part is you can't take 'em back and you can't see where the line is, hell, don't know if there is a line. Family makes you do—you would contradict who you are even—what you're capable of to take care of—"

"I don't get it."

"Sam, when family is backed in a corner, sometimes you bite- bite anyone that gets in the way. Damn near hatch schemes to—"

Both boys stared up in fright, mindful of John's mood.

"Humph," John lightened his tone. "Tell you what—think of it this way, if you boys stick by each other and keeping trying, even the most harebrained of ideas is bound to work between the two of you."

"I still don't get it." Sam poked at Dean to provide an answer.

"I don't either. That doesn't even make sense."

"I hope you never do get it. You just do whatcha have to take care of each other."

"Me take care of Dean?" Sam let out a burst of giggles. "Daddy, don't be redeckul-"

"Ridiculous," Dean corrected, "And yeah, that is pretty funny!"

"I bet I can! You watch!"

"Really? That so? Don't buy it—not a bit—panty weight!" With a smirk, Dean dove and tickled Sam until the kid literally let out a piercing scream.


	20. Nobody put baby in a corner

**Now...Crumbpecker's Inn**

* * *

Sam's screams died out, hoarse and brutal as burned leather, until he felt his vocal cords shrivel to overstressed scraps. Depths charges of the sound ricocheted, and the ceiling hurled dust in response to Sam's anguish. Regardless, the primal protest did little to block the shocking sound of Dean's collapse in his ears.

"Run."

Every word sprang as black as the grim stains of lost blood, shadowy pitch, against Dean's haunting, ashen pallor. "I'm already--." He heaped and quivered, growling orders to Sam to the last.

"Quite a dismal challenge." Theron nudged the hunter over, glaring down at Dean's muted eyes. "And now, our reward is fulfilled."

"Bastards!" The demonic impulse animal, the forever darkness that wrapped about Sam's mournful soul, razor bristled on his taut muscles. Along the last few years, he mastered careful containment, teaching the evil within the game rules. He was the master; The demon blood curse the horse to be reigned. It always walked inside of him, but for everyone's sake, he would not be twisted by it ever again. His powers may be gone, but the anger housed deep in him forever. He could count on this persistent nagging to bankrupt his soul. His eyes flicked between the enemy and the makeshift stake until the drive wanted to emerge. His inner monster, the reckless beast, demanded freedom and the sensation of a winning kill, and now, if ever a time, the shackles threw off.

"Frightened little one?" Theron clasped his hands together as if in grubby prayer.

Showing no signs of terror, Sam presented nary a tremble, but the lack of answer meant something, steaming and seething, brewed below the normally honest and kind features until the cherub soft face jabbed into angular planes. Chocolate hair drenched in sweat, and his stuttered breathing heated the air with each exhale.

"Tell me. Do you feel the need to rally the rafters for me? The blessed one is already over," Theron said. "That fire burns for nothing."

"For everything," Sam countered so hushed that the voice could turn thriving earth to desolate stone.

"The result prolongs your own pain." Nysa opened her arms as if she might clasp Sam in comfort.

"Don't touch me." A hasty elbow flew towards the taunting voice. With nowhere to turn, the impact smashed Nysa's front tooth, and the creature spit up a modest sum of blood before Sam started a backward swing with his weapon. He ripped a mark in her flesh, just enough to scar the surface.

"This must not be. Is not to be. You have no power," she denied Sam's assault.

Beyond belief, the wicked creature backed away, puzzling at the damage. The sting of injury and doubt embraced her flesh, and she wailed for the horde. Before her voice died, the minions flocked to the call. The first Atreidae, stampeding in defense of the grand queen, took a thrusting arc blow. The wood dragged bitter splinters into the creature's guts.

All the while, Sam's hands worked the stake in numerous passes, slashing indiscriminately. Ignoring his fatigue and injury, his arm shook with his attacks. Beyond self-concern, he forced the injured one to balance. Indescribable pain dictated each invading thrust. His mouth gaped in unspoken scream as tears of rage and ruin streamed down Sam's cheeks. These simple indicators illustrated the demon sin running free. There was no preparing, no warnings as it mutilated the creatures. Skeptical laments echoed in the room, yet Sam's assault remained endless, untouchable—without regard as he killed. He sought this pain for the enemy, teetering on the inner dark's need for revenge.

"Hit a nerve," Theron said, watching the battle from the sidelines as if he knew the fore drawn conclusion of Sam's failure. "Dance little monkey, dance."

Sam gored the weapon into another darkling's flesh. The timber rammed through its heart, embedding deeply between a beat. Suddenly, Sam yanked the skewer from torso to guts, ripping it crudely as spurts of putrid blood fountained.

"Sammy!" Above the heat and clamor of the battle, Dean's muttered plea breezed by, carrying a worry tinge. He doubled his knees, pulling himself into a protective ball. "Not like—that."

Instantly, Sam seized. A gasp caught in his throat, which he swallowing thickly. "I have to." If all he could offer was the embraced darkness, he would shoulder Dean's disappointment. If he had a chance at fresh demon blood, he'd guzzle it down and accept the pain that came after—both physical and brotherly pain. After all, Dean would have to live to harass him about this mighty fall. Living in shame was less of a burden than losing a brother. Pissed off Dean was still an alive Dean.

"R—run."

The next move ripped a path through two clinging wraiths. An arm thrust outward, muscles writhing under his skin to move inhumanly. Reeling as his eyes transfixed on the blood spilling out of Dean, Sam's arm outstretched and his fingers flew in a splay. Muscles filled with adrenaline until his veins protruded from his skin, flexing like a like a webbed labyrinth. "Sorry, Dean."

"Run." A sputter of blood followed. "Please."

Sam nodded, and with renewed strength, he attacked, increasing the viciousness. A wraith clipped him in the chin, stunning him only for a brief moment. As he summoned rage and frustration, he whirled around to drive a stake through it, driving it to the floor, and finished by stomping a jump with both feet into the creature's skull. What he lacked in numbers and finesse, he made up for in urgent, chaotic moves, particularly gunning for Theron and defending his weakened brother.

"Go…go…run." The quivers of his body tottered about him. There was no more tricks and cleverness in his arsenal, and even his lips only managed breathy mumbles. No matter. Sam had to know that all of the crazy stunts he pulled wasn't for nothing. Sam had to live. "Trying to save—you."

"NO!" Jamming the weapon under a creature's rib bones, Sam heaved forward, arms shaking, until the bones crumbled and burst through burned skin. "No, no, no!" Unsure of he protested Dean's commands or the creature's mocking, Sam fought, accepting blood and blows upon his own flesh. Whatever the rationale, Sam held the defensive line and wiped out four of the seven until only the rulers had one clansman at their call; however, the last grotesque battle left the unending wraith numbers untouched. Without the sunrise taking the corporal form away or finding the tether to this world, this battle would be continuous.

"Such an impressive display of power. The likes rival other lines we've been called to battle." Nysa smiled. "A shame to waste such prowess."

"That cannot be stopped." Theron clasped his hands in the same sleazy way.

Sam didn't quite know what would happen next, and he doubted he could hold out this way forever. Far beyond caring for the consequences of his actions, he took the unplotted stumble into an ever-increasing gloom. If the Winchester were finally to die, then on this day, they would die together and the most devastating plague would go with them.

A shadow flashed to his left, advantageously attacking from a blind spot, disappeared from the corner of Sam's eye. When he countered, dashing a hasty glance, the creature had found another opponent, Bobby, who latched around the thing's ankle. The hunter, still down on all fours, struggled to say conscious. Grit effort undercut the creature's footing, dragging it down to the same floor level. Once on equal field, the seasoned hunter grabbed upon a dusty tome, swinging the book like dulled battleaxe. The massive volume careened down to bludgeon the darkling's face.

"Think like that anymore and I'll swat you with it too." Bobby warned Sam. Without words, he knew the sorrow world the boy had gone to hold out long. The hunter stretched, refusing to give in to the last. "Got me, Boy!"

"Run…run."

"And you best shut that up." Bobby glared at Dean, but his eyes softened sensing Dean's decline. It appeared that his friend could do little more than stick on a record groove of words.

The man stood and approached Sam side with a half-cocked grin. "Old meat is tough." He winked and tossed himself into the battle madness, knowing he could do little than to serve as a brief barrier. Sam followed suit. Their maddened effort might have worked, had Theron not called all the wraith children to collect in a mass effort and surround the duo, save one wraith boy, who swarmed towards Dean.

"Inspiring," Nysa trilled. "Never the like."

Before long, the seasoned hunter sank into the obscurity of wraith arms. His battered body gave no resistance, and the unholy children summarily offered him to their masters. Free from attack, Bobby collapsed, sucking in a concerned breath.

In the same instant, Sam's stuffed to capacity too. The "fire" theory Bobby offered and believed had just been shot to hell. These damn things never drew to fire; they drew to their master. Years ago, they had protected the Atreidae and that is precisely what was happening now. The wraith were all cannon fodder for the masters. "So that's the game, you bastard. You're afraid to fight me!" Sam screamed. "You better call everyone you got cause I'm going to kill—."

"S—Sammy." Dean pushed his voice, mewling like a sickened rat. "Get out—out."

"My, my. Such a sacrifice." Would you like to be called to battle the second?" Nysa asked. "We would like to see the glory of your line."

"You aren't allowed to touch him, Bitch!"

"Pretty talker." The man teased.

"Then fight your own battles!" Sam tossed into the chaos of wraith children who stood between salvation and defeat. As Sam continued to deflect blows, wading through the gnashing tide, he kicked a wraith with one jump, gaining a free punch to another. Breaking through a line, he sliced a jagged gash with his stake, tearing at the dark irises of the Theron's eyes until wraith endless pawed Sam back.

"Weary hangs upon these bones!" Whatever pains the wound bore, the man raised up unscathed, bearing down like a cresting wind crushing upon a brittle fall leaf—a poem to life and death. A flittering and howling wave of creatures pummeled alongside Theron in a discord swarm. Battered, Sam lobbed with each strike until an arm coiled, wrapping about his neck. Hot, putrid breath warmed the distressed hairs upon Sam's neck when the dark man pressed second skin close from behind him.

The invasion of his space and the attack crept disquiet up his spine. A spike—a callous thump—wedged inside his heartbeat. Cut off from even a struggling, excruciating breath, his scratching fingers grasped into the arm cutting off his air supply. Theron's other arm crooked, dragging Sam about the waist, invading the hole under Sam's ribcage with a jarring finger.

In spite of his situation, the hysteria of failure stole more than the deformed arm crushing at his windpipe. Sam pumped dangling legs, searching for ground like a drifting, fruitless dandelion seed amid a hurricane. Fuzzy desperation gnawed at his head as the servants of this evil, a throng of mindless minions, stared at the showcase of his death.

"The ending is the same." Nysa said, brushing a hand to Sam's cheek as she crooned the sing-songy, simple taunt.

"Get—away," Sam sputtered as large blotches of spots danced inside his eyes as his body laxed and dangled.

Within the victory of silence, she parted the flock of followers, moved through the rabble towards Dean and the wraith boy, and breathed an ecstatic sigh. "Finally." Hovering, she relaxed a hand on the slow, ebbing rise and fall of Dean's chest. "He finally sings for us. Rattle the breath and the bones."

"Brother bone." The wraith boy cried.

Sam answered with only a gurgle of choke.

"He is no longer yours." Nysa said."Pathetic to end them so."

Theron slammed Sam to the floor. "They turned a cold back upon the power offered to them. This end, predestined cannot be salvaged now. I ponder why they even—"

The hunter gasped weakly, shaking the fog from lack of oxygen. Sam slithered, exploring with wobbly fingers for a renewed way to fight. He had tried, even gone to where he hated himself. They had tried everything, coming up just short.

"And now, we are free." Theron said.

"Warring Men, a lost stem, searching for the empty limb." Nysa's hand pushed solidly on Dean's ribcage, relishing the struggles and hitches of the man's breath.

In a way, the woman was right. The brothers essentially lived and protected, making up for all that each lacked. Even in the weakest hour, both would find strength for the other. Dean's crooked finger clutched and wiggled, dragging an anchor to life and wadding into a fist. He wanted to punch her—smash her face in—kill her.

"Momma's here." Her voice softened in a sigh. "A glorious son to be."

"Speak not of him in that way." Theron commanded. "His purpose is to die."

"You think he will not be forever strong? He has shown this to be so and, we, oh we shall be superior than those which birthed his make in our world.

"No!" Dean wilted an anemic hand in defiance.

"Don't cry so, little king. Your song belongs to me." Her hand trembled in excitement with his every erratic, spotty breath."Traitors long gone. Be our dear bone."

"Not her—even—."

"Did they not lie, leave you."

"So—what?"

* * *

**THEN… Lawrence, Kansas 1982**

**

* * *

  
**

Peering from under the cloak of a large plush towel, Dean shivered from the perch of his toddler bed. From just beyond the safety hood, tears of fright and pain welled in his emerald eyes. Tentatively, he dared a glance, all at his mother's prompting, until another sudden thunder crack uncoiled inside the looming storm clouds beyond his window. He practically dived and burrowed his head into the cave of the warm the terrycloth.

"Just a little boom and you didn't seem to mind when it was just rain." Pulling on the towel hood, she gave Dean a reassuring head rub as the boy jerked away. "I know one thing, Dean. After every storm there's always a happy ending."

"Promise?"

"No matter how dark it gets, you'll always have me, right?"

"I guess."

"Then, stop hiding. I need to get a look at you anyway. You have to trust that I'll take care of you, no matter what."

"How?"

"In every way, and even when you least expect it! Come on and let me see those amazing peepers."

Meekly, a golden mop of hair emerged out of cotton cocoon. He nodded and pouted, rubbing his cheek and worried eyes. His lips pressed into a quavering frown as he sat on the edge of his bed, hugging the plushy surface of the towel. Swollen cheeks, tear stained and reddened, nuzzled as Dean buried into his mother's mass of hair. She pushed him back, inspecting the apology and pain of her son's troubled face.

"Ah, there they are. I'm not angry, baby, but you do need to listen. And, even more when I tell you to be careful. Let's take a look at you. What am I going to do with all these nicks and scratches?"

"I didn't mean to fall."

"Next time, before you leap in the nearest muddle puddle, you might think about how deep that pothole is, or at least how close it was to Mr. Keller's rose bushes. My thorny little mess, is it so scary now?"

A crack of thunder interrupted, and he flinched, holding tighter to the wadded cloth between his fingers. "Yes."

"Buck up now." With gentle care, her fingers cleaned a cut on his knee and a scratch near his ankle. All the while, she glowed with love and kindness. "It won't hurt for long."

Dean squirmed and gnawed a whimper as proof of his manhood. "I'm not a baby." Instead, he looked at wisps of hair that framed his mother's sapphire eyes, which shined more dazzling and warming than any precious stone.

"What a little man!" She smoothed an overly large bandage upon the knee. "Just to impress the girls in daycare. All girls love scars." Kissing his forehead, she gave an all-knowing grin. "What do you think?"

"Girls?"

"I'm a girl. Watch it now!'

"Mom! You're not a girl."

"I suppose being a Mom makes that moot."

"Moot?"

"Nevermind. Don't worry; I'll keep all the embarrassing stories ready when you do like girls."

"Blah-yuck."

"Ah, I see. All better?"

"Yeah- maybe. Can you—stay." Dean began in a quiet voice. "Stay—for a little." A crack of thunder intruded and he flinched. "Can you sleep with me tonight?"

"Then who will sleep with your Daddy?"

"He's a fraidy-cat."

"Whoa! Hey, hey! You houndin' the old man?" John peered in the doorframe. His large frame snaked inside the doorway. "What a homecoming! I work all day and that's the thanks I get."

"Daddy!" Dean bounded to life, crashing into his father's arm.

"That's better! Well, take a look at you. Someone's had a bad day."

"Typical stubborn Winchester."

"Uh-oh, looks like I'm in the doghouse with you, tiger. Good thing most girls think were cute."

"Not that cute. Dean might be, but you have definitely lost that charm."

"Had to happen. Guess we're on our own, kid!" John toppled in a large avalanche towards Dean's bed, while the boy steeled himself for the worst, creaking bed landing.

"Are you trying to break us out of house and home?"

"And, what do you know, it didn't break." John defended. "I always wanted try that."

"Don't give the daredevil son anymore ideas."

"Then who gets my best ones?" John leaned his upper body upon the bed as his legs and rear spread across the floor. "But we better make it a onetime crash dive, okay?"

"Awww!"

"Quiet or we both are toast." John smiled and patted the other side of Dean's bed. "Hey, lady. We saved you a spot to join this circus."

"So very kind of you, sir." She bowed slightly.

"I live to serve." When the next crash of thunder sounded, John jumped in time with his son.

"Not you too!" Mary crawled on the other side, managing to get in up to her waist and balancing her knees in an arch.

"Why do you think I'm sleeping close to little man? He's gonna protect me."

"I'm doomed. Guess, it's up a little ole' girl to show you both how to be brave."

"What's brave?" Dean asked as Mary shuffled in a turn on the bed.

"Knowing you're scared and worried, but holding to what's right. How your heartbeats and tells you what to do."

"My heart likes to play in puddles."

"That's your mischievous feet. Brave was that apology to scary Mr. Keller."

"Whoa. That guy even scares me. How'd you do that one?"

"John!"

"He gots ten cats, you know. Did you see them, Mom?"

"I've seen them. Feral looking things. I think they are living cat dead."

"Think they came back like that movie?" Dean asked. "Have you been letting him watching scary things again?"

"No." John said as Dean shook his head yes.

"It was cool. The guys popped outta the grave and had these weird eyes just like the white cat. They glow real scary, Daddy."

"Why do I bother?"

"Cause we're cute. I told ya. Remember. Bad habits learned in one lesson, good ones never soak in."

"Don't I know it!"

"But, I like the orange one. It's got a mushed face. Did you see that? And the stripe one with the black nose." Dean babbled onward and laughed, nestling in the safe space between his parents, and long forgetting the thunder and storm entirely.


	21. You can't handle the truth

**Author's note: Howdy, I wrote this fairly quickly, but things have gone crazy in my world. If any of you find sanity, please send some to me! I hope to finish this by next week.**

* * *

**Now...Crumbpecker's Inn**

* * *

"Tried to let go—cant. " Dying he could do, but never lose sight of his family again, at least not to this fiasco of a dark circus. His livid fist quivered to flex. "Even when—after all—."

Vaguely, as Nysa drew the fallen man close, she heard not only the rumbles of Dean's vague thoughts, but another sound, loud and vicious, demanded her attention. The clatters and squeals fused into a sharp droning, sounding like a screamer trapped in a water barrel, but the intruding noise ironically combined into a persistent melody.

"You have devised own tricks and treats." A finger of discovery traced the source with little effort until she plucked the circular ear blub, which had fallen out of Dean's ear. She enclosed the noise within her palm and yanked it free by the thin wire attached. Her fingers pinched down upon a cylinder earphone, no bigger than a dime. "Did you strive great lengths to hide yourself from mother? Your own song?"

"Damn..." Dean forced his eyes to open, but his body already felt rigid. "…Right." He might have chuckled at the scolding. After all, his real mother hated those things—walkmans and the liked--and even lectured John as far back as Dean could remember about hearing lost. He chuckled, briefly recalling the way the corners of Mary's mouth would crinkle when she disapproved. When demons are at the gate and torturing with sound, sometimes you had to find a song of your own.

"Clever boy. You will yet learn listen."

"Perhaps they are overly clever." Theron kicked a jarring crack to Sam's ribs, as the hunter crawled and slithered an indistinguishable distance on the floor. Scorched and battered, Sam bent inward on himself. "Nowhere to run. No other magic to show us?"

Running would have been a luxury, and even if Sam could find an opening, his body dwelled in a place of useless muscles –too tired and depleted. No matter what, he wouldn't abandon Dean or Bobby. "Here's a trick. Bite me!" Sam balled up his knees to his chest and took in a harsh breath.

"If we had possessed their source before." Nysa sighed away in a dreamy state.

"No need. Today begins anew. One last feast and we will be rise up as two away from the brick, shadow, and bone. Bloody ties broken."

"Brother Bone?" the wraith boy nudged Nysa's shoulder. "Battle proven."

"Yes, love to protect you. Protect us."

"Quiet, annoyance." Theron shouted. "His only worth is for the meat of his bones."

Dean groaned as he took in a prickly breath, that when exhaled sounded like a trio of slurred, intelligible cuss words. The intent of the mumbles sparked obvious.

"Naughty boy, full of tricks," she sang.

"Go –hell." Dean mumbled.

"Forsake those beyond my voice. "

An involuntary gripe escaped his lips followed by a stronger burst of speech. "SONVA...ugh…" Pushing at her with half-assed strength in his palms, he winced as his soft tissue guzzled more of his life away. Cold bumps stood warning of the deadly grey overtaking him. He sighed "bitch" under his breath, holding at the last remaining crag of his consciousness.

As Dean started wholly to unravel, he crossed his arms over his chest, seeking out any spark of warmth to avoid shock. Foul bruising developed on his arms from thrashing against these things, and his shattered body screeched for full oblivion. The woman could sing to the rafters and it would do little good. This time they were beaten—overpowered by sheer numbers. He guessed a Winchester couldn't hold back hurricanes just because he wanted to.

"Shhhh."

"Soon, mother?" The hopeful and inquisitive wraith boy at Nysa's side fawningly poked and inspected Dean. "New brother?"

"Yes, my beloved first."

Theron chuckled. "Play on, dear sister. Play this little house just for the moment."

"Like me?"

"No." Dean denied this faux family's claim. "Only one—"

"Come home. Sons who adore their mother always come home."

"Not—mother! His hatred fueled his weak voice. "Stain—just a stain. My mom—messy—beautiful."

"I will be beautiful again."

"All be beautiful and never will be alone?" The wraith boy asked.

"Not for much longer. He's near the end and transformation." She scooped down, arching Dean's back into her arms. "A favored son for all the little ones."

"My real own? This time for sure?" It asked, begging.

"For always." Her lips ruminated into the delicate melody.

"Sing all—want---can't take—they're always there. I belong—to them—her." With a look, Dean flopped, staring vacantly at Sam. "Hated you for reminding me of—I—wrong."

"Dean?" The clueless Sam crawled, inching and flopping in an uneasy collapse.

"Be still now, it's not going to hurt for long."

"After all of it—still smell her honeysuckle," Dean stared off at Sam, looking through him and blathered away in a weak, warm laugh. "Her searching eyes—Dad's greasy—fingers—never clean."

* * *

**Then... 1990… Harvelle's Roadhouse**

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* * *

  
**

The sole drinker at the bar, watching a buzzing snow of the TV screen mounted in the corner, simultaneously gulped back a whiskey and motioned for Ellen to bring him another.

With a nod and cursory hand wave, she stalled him as she banged a good whack to the TV's side, managing to align the picture to shades of red. As she turned her attention to his glass, her foot rooted around a small, underfoot child. She would have toppled over had she not grasped the bar for balance.

"Jo! I swear I told you to not come out here. This ain't no place for a young lady. Get squared out back in your bed before I warm your hide."

"Daddy's home?"

"Not yet, but when he does, he'll get you first thing. Scoot off until Dad finishes up his work. John's here, so Dad's close behind. You know how he jollies up to surprise you." She squared the girl the back beyond a door and eyeballed it until she was sure her little one had left her in some peace.

"God, I love her, but she's damn hard headed."

Before she could take a second glance at the door or fill John's glass, the last customers, half-slumped across the back table, barked for another round. Two rough-ridden hunters, incredibly drunk and bleary eyed, demanded attention. John quietly wonder if the pair was redneck enough to wave some stars and bars.

"Sweet thing! I need me another beer." The hairy man spluttered.

Her eyes narrowed, wide open in a strange way, but focused as if her eyes were pinpoint crosshairs. John arced up, waiting for signs he'd have to step in, yet Ellen pulled up a corner of her wry mouth and gave him a wink. His worries were ill placed. Yet again, for what he was about to do, he might hope that gruesome twosome run interference for him.

"Marcus, you and that old coot friend of yours are already four beers past last call. Pack it up and shut up."

The other man said, shaking as if he might have hit detox. "Come on, sweetness."

"Sweetness. Now you have to realize you're ten sheets, pissed drunk, otherwise you'd remember honey talk don't count for shit round here. Both of you are done for the night. Shift it."

"Ahhh, El, why you gotta be so mean?" Marcus asked.

Yeah! Hey, what about that guy? Him?" The shaky man pointed a wavering finger towards John.

"He's family. That doesn't count for last calls. Out!"

"You don't mean it."

"Don't I!? Cause I got a straight-shooting rifle, and if you don't get to getting and never call me El or sweetie again, you'll get a buckshot view of it. Move!"

The scene made John's stomach crawl. He hated the other hunters and even this bar. The roadhouse collected smoky, rude, pushy, self-proclaimed-better than-you-hunters. He knows most of the names, but nothing real about them. None of them knew a damn smidge about him. That was the way he liked it.

This place wasn't a bar, but a graveyard for hunters to die in. He hated his place—the façade of it. The only good thing was the numb of liquor, yet tonight his emotions left a bitterness the alcohol couldn't ease. He detested the way everyone here acted like the hunting life was normal as cheeseburger. The only thing that burned him worse was how he fit into this world. In truth, he hated himself. He swore he'd never fight a war again. Swore he'd be a good husband and father to Mary. After it all, he was a lousy lying bastard. He wasn't even good at keeping promises to himself.

Yet, Ellen and William Harvelle welcomed him and made him want to trust. Thinking back, it was Ellen at the head of the welcome wagon—a barkeeper, more den mother and sage than a bartender. She had made him feel it was okay to be as messed up as he was and that the door to him was always open. Maybe it was the way she called him out on his bullshit in the same way Mary had, but that was about all those two women would have in common. There was the real reason he hated being here now. He could never love this haven again.

"Show a little kindness and they walk all over you!" Ellen shoved Marcus towards the exit.

"Kindness." John mumbled without making a sound. To repay that Ellen's kindness to him, tonight, he would forever blemish Anthony's memory. Harvelle's first mistake could have been forgiven, but glory in battle was best left to posers in fake Hollywood movies where jocks and cheerleaders died after banging.

Ellen flushed, twirling the two around once before the toppled out the door. "Come back tomorrow!"

"Last ones, eh?"

"Now, you want to tell me what is in the chaw?"

"The truth." That's would be what she'd want. She'd expect honest. He had waited patiently, drink in hand, until closing time. He didn't want witnesses to his duty and Ellen's pain, or just maybe some part of him felt like a coward.

When Ellen squatted next to him at the bar, she surprised at John's expression and flinch. Then the grin appeared, accompanied by something resembling respect. Leaning over the bar, she grasped a full bottle of scotch. "This'll be your tenth." She poised the bottle teasingly over his glass. "Let me guess. You getting alcohol before dragging about with some loose, grateful woman?"

"Not tonight. I—I need—just one more."

"Fine. Your funeral; not mine. Hey, you get too hard on this bottle and you'll start looking like the rest of these old farts."

Sucking in a breath, John geared up. Sometimes you had to embrace the suck in life and claim it as your own.

"When did you last eat? I make a pretty fair to go box. If your boys look as wiry as you, I'm beginning to wonder if you starve them."

"No."

"No? Those kids could use a good female squaring away. Even you!"

"Don't. I—"

"You think I'm gonna let you lock everyone out" She poured him a full glass and herself one too. "We got a place for all three of you. I've been down those tough spots myself."

And that was when he realized what he'd known all along: No matter how intentional or otherwise Harvelle's actions were, Ellen was the pillar of the hapless ones out there fighting damn evil things, and he didn't want to do what he swore to boys as being the right thing.

"What's eating you?"She asked. "Will sees that long face and—Don't think I won't rat your surly ass out when he gets here."

"He won't see it. He's not going to make it back."

"That ain't a bit funny. Don't you pull my leg like that, John Winchester. Not like that." Her eyes swept accusingly from his unkempt hair to the full whiskey glass and his stained shirt. Her heart beat on the horrible, familiar distaste sensation of loss. "He don't go down for anything.""

"Dammit, did you think we go out to handing out candy to kiddie?" Her husband's ambition and overconfidence nearly broke all that John had dear. That acrid fear rang fallow and wrong into his voice when he spoke. As much as he quelled the anger inside him, John shook. He wanted to scream: "Your husband almost killed my boy. I hate to bring the death news, but I'm not sorry he's the one that bought it. Anything is better to me than losing my Dean." Yet he didn't say any of that.

"Don't lie to me! You—I won't listen to this nonsense."

"He's gone." The callous truth rumbled inside his mouth, stinging sour, yet the woman before him made him cringe. Honesty made a feeble attempt at fighting the renewed adrenaline in his traitorous hands, which rolled the whiskey glass with ripples of greasy fingerprints. The right thing is often the hardest thing to do. In this case, the right thing was a lie. His nerves went sideways and squeamish. Ellen didn't need the reality, but the untarnished memory of the man she loved. For whatever kindness she had shown to his family, he would give her that. Once he settled on the few deceptions he could weigh upon himself, he offered her an emphatic wince.

"He's better than that!"

Safe in the Teflon of his lies, John squared his shoulder, sloshed the amber courage in his glass, and swallowed his emotions. "Yeah, he was." He stared off into the glass, fabricating lies in time with the swirl.

"You tell me that he's coming right behind you. You tell me or I—"

"He fought damn hard right until the end." His Adam's apple wedged hard on the hollow pitch of his voice. "Guess he didn't tell you what we were going after—probably thought you would worry. We found a pulse on what took Mary and your sister. Both of us wanted that revenge so bad, we got reckless. Taste of the end, I figure. Didn't realize it until all of it got away from us."

"He doesn't fail. He's not that weak, not like you."

"Hmm, I was wrong about a lot of things. I was a fool to let myself trust when I shouldn't have." It was about as much pity as John could digest. "He wanted you to know he thought about you—and Jo—in the end. Made me promise to ask you to forgive him."

"Forgive? You bastard," Her cold, detested eyes burned into him.

John shifted weight from one foot to the other around the barstool, but squared his gaze in determination not to look away. "I'm sorry."

"Coward." Her eyebrows bushed together and warm tears cascaded down her pale face. "He doesn't fail. He doesn't. You—"

"It was too far of a reach and for that I—"

"Shut up," A trembling fist curled at her sides.

"I can't offer you anymore than that. Wish I could."

"I told you to shut the hell up!" Her fist cracked John's jawbone.

"Mommy! Mommy!" However long Jo had snuck back into the bar was a mystery, but she hovered at her mother's side like a disapproving parent. Long minutes passed as the young girl gazed upon the two adults and the way her mother repeated her father's name.

"It's alright, little one." John patted her head.

"Don't you touch her! You're a damn plague. I hate you!" Her voice sounded with confidence-- Strong of voice, but weak of body. "I hate you."

When her frame slumped from the barstool, and before she realized it, John lowered her to knees on the floor. He stood vigilant watch as she wept, letting her damn him until the words bore anguished holes into his soul. "I've said my piece."

"I hate--" But her voice, despite the raging atmosphere and crashing news, went calm. "I'm done talking. You thank your boys tonight that I let you walk outta here. Next time—"

John blinked at the pity in the corner of his own eyes before he turned to walk away. "I won't be coming back."


End file.
